


Unmade

by powers



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Banter, Betrayal, Eventual Smut, F/M, Flashbacks, Foreshadowing, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, Introspection, Loneliness, Loss of Identity, Morality, Power Dynamics, Psychological Trauma, Recreational Drug Use, Revenge, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Tension, adding tags along the way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:00:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28984524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powers/pseuds/powers
Summary: "I believe we are seeking the same experience of freedom. A freedom from the desire for closure, and from its alluring illusion of comfort. A freedom from burdensome cycles of questions and answers. Such an emancipation demands that we embrace the impermanence of a 'self'. To reject ownership over our memories, our personal histories... even the very moment which we inhabit."Perhaps this rejection would make possible another reality. I cannot imagine what may happen in such a world... But I think no one will find it necessary to build digital prisons for the personality engrams of the dead."You might assume this is a story about nude Takemura, and you would be correct. This is mostly about nude Takemura. But it's also a meditation on consciousness, survival within violent systems of control, the illusion of self, the improbable driving physics ofCyberpunk 2077, revolutionary action, society, morality, power, the meaning of life, psychological projection, the case for punk rock now and in the future, masculinity, language, and River Ward's terminal case of weightlifter brain. Story (mostly) follows the post-heist events ofCyberpunk 2077.100% radioactive with spoilers.
Relationships: Goro Takemura & Female V, Goro Takemura & V, Goro Takemura/Female V, Goro Takemura/V
Comments: 54
Kudos: 90





	1. Living Proof

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my very first fic, inspired by the fantastic Goro/V stories in my bookmarks. Your feedback, critiques and comments are very welcome and appreciated.

"The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits."  
— Laurence Gonzalez, _Everyday Survival_

In theory, V was enjoying her functional excommunication from Afterlife. The 80-storey stepped rake of Konpeki Plaza was such an innovative, groundbreaking fuckup that spending the aftermath in professional exile almost felt like a kindness. Solo work could be grounding, even meditative, and solitude didn't demand 50% of her pay. There was no need to hand-hold the latest musclebound golem tethered to her by a fixer, nobody sharing half-baked conspiracy theories about Soulkiller, and no need to hear any shoulda-coulda-wouldas about her failed heist.

Still, she couldn't deny that six months of what Jackie Welles called the "chew some gum, drink some rum, and treat ourselves to a bean burrito for a job well done" routine had imparted a certain appreciation for the practical function a partner could serve – especially when conferring sound beatings to an entire apartment building of Tyger Claws. But there was no Jackie anymore, and today the only mercenaries who acknowledged her existence were either desperate or stupid.

Meeting Takemura felt like starting over. The possibility of accepting a new gig with a new partner made her realise how much she missed the hand-holding and conspiracy theories and oversharing now that they were no longer an option. She wanted somebody to bitch at about boredom and aching feet – the sore work of grepping leads at a fixer's behest was the closest thing to a universal truth held in common by all affiliations of edgerunner.

" _Wow._ "

When he walked into Tom's Diner carrying a seat cushion under his arm, V realised Takemura was the first and only musclebound golem she had ever known with the foresight to actually _prevent soreness_. His affect of unflappable pride held fast as he joined her at the table – Takemura was too old to concern himself with the opinions of others. This cushion was his primary means of keeping a correct spinal alignment now that the implanted armature grafted to his skeleton no longer functioned.

"Lugging that thing around all day, huh?" She imagined dignified Takemura haunted by this big dumb _polygon_ on all his adventures around town. A single clap of laughter spilled out from behind her taut smile, at the amusing impracticality of carrying something so unwieldy in a city built around neither convenience nor comfort. "Trying to act natural, holding it under an arm while you read the screamsheets. Knowing the embarrassment would stop your heart if anybody mistook it for a sex wedge."

She swallowed a gulp of coffee then stabbed the air with a pointing finger, accusing the pillow under him. "Which it fucking is."

Takemura's face cracked faintly under the veneer of composure he retained in public. He took the joke in stride, meeting her directness with tolerant serenity. "I have survived many tedious hours thanks to this, thief."

For a second, V fixed her opponent with serious eyes, attempting to fake the gravitas she didn't possess. "Sure," she began, casting a distracted look over a menu she knew neither of them would use, "But this is different. You're not trying to look tough for twelve straight hours on the wrong side of a 'Saka conference room, are ya?"

Bonding over their shared circumstances had imparted a protective fondness into a friendship already marked by compassion and loss, but V hadn't expected Takemura to allow her this far under his mask. To speak with him, even briefly, was to realise he wasn't naturally ruthless or tensioned by an inner violence straining to explode. He seemed thoughtful, even sensitive. This meeting was not yet another awkward after-hours postmortem over Broseph. Takemura was not some 300-pound troglodyte with a head like a block of ice hired by Kirk, the Idiot King of Heywood.

"I doubt that sciatic pain will deepen my appreciation of your... unique perspectives."

The corners of his mouth twitched. Was that a smile or a sneer? V tilted her head to one side, observing her friend's reactions with a careful eye.

"We both know sciatica's a conspiracy invented by freds so they'll never have to do something they don't wanna do." Her face betrayed a good-natured intention behind the crossfire. "Plus," she concluded gravely, gazing downward with deliberate slowness into the half-empty mug between her hands, "Existence is pain."

Takemura seemed almost pleasantly surprised by the statement. For an instant he hesitated, examining her face with a curious expression, like she'd just unwittingly spoken a secret password. He replied in the same enigmatic way, completing their coded phrase with its second half: "It seems we are both hopeless romantics."

On a nearby wall-mounted television, a news report concerning Arasaka aired, which disrupted their gentle barbs. His attention slingshot back to their surroundings, eyes trained to the screen. When Tom, the diner's namesake, changed the channel midway through the broadcast, Takemura made a scene, confronting the harried proprietor like a bellowing drunk. V's face shifted from startled confusion to an almost implacable and deadly serious mask. She attempted to calm her friend with a gentle hand, reaching across the table to touch his elbow.

"Goro, we need to focus," she offered in a whisper, recognising his behaviour as something they both shared – V didn't _have_ to shatter the mirror in Dexter DeShawn's motel room, for example, but getting his security deposit withheld gave her some petty satisfaction, much as it was probably a contributing factor in DeShawn's decision to commit a murder. "Can't believe you're still allowed into public places, choom."

He sat back, refusing eye contact, and V understood without words that it was time to move on to the business of the day. She knew better than to prod at Takemura's faraway look, or to try and make sense of his reaction. His life in exile probably had very little sense to offer. They had that in common, too.

She changed the subject, the faintest smile still visible on her face, and together they laid out the lines: if Evelyn Parker was as capable as she wanted others to believe, she would be on the east coast by now. If not – if she was gonk enough to stick around, then chasing after her would _still_ be a waste of time. No one making decisions like that would have information worth the time and effort spent finding her. Anders Hellman, creator of the biochip, had apparently defected from Arasaka. But, V was quick to mention, defected isn't disappeared. Maybe he'd even cooperate. It was no secret that these Corpo engineers and physicists were all educated perverts running amoral medical experiments. The opportunity to collect some data on V's apparent resurrection might tempt this particular pervert out of hiding.

Their mental calculus mostly finished, Takemura issued a sharp nod to underscore its conclusion. The roles were decided. Locating Hellman wouldn't be easy – he volunteered a little moral support to that end, in his own way: "It is not so hard to execute a miracle of logistics, when one is properly motivated."

"Just fucking ecstatic you're not trying to convince me to join your blood feud against Junior. Revenge kinda falls on the tedious side for me."

"We'll see." He stood. "There is still time for you to change your mind."

Johnny Silverhand jumped in once Takemura and his cushion left the venue, materialising in the empty seat. "Just a little kid playing ronin 'cause he thinks that's how real people solve problems. You said it yourself. Tedious as fuck." The engram took a pensive suck on an immaterial cigarette and made himself comfortable, propping the heel of a boot up on the tabletop. "This honour and vengeance shit, it's propaganda. Exists to reinforce the power structures that created it in the first place. Your choom's just living proof that the cycle perpetuates. Hell, crazy papa Saburo's dead proof of the same."

V didn't disagree, but didn't want to give Silverhand the satisfaction of an endorsement, either. The deranged elder Arasaka may have deserved Johnny as a judge, jury and executioner – that, at least, seemed like righting a cosmic wrong. As the former beneficiary of Takemura's compassion, however, she hesitated to paint him with the same brush. "Oh, shit, you're right. Never thought about it like that..." She grinned, not bothering to convince him of something they both knew was a lie.

"Joke about it all you want, but we both know this won't end well for either of you. Do you really want to help dispense the justice you know doesn't exist on behalf of Ara-fucking-Saka?"

"What I really want is to pay for this coffee and delta instead of debating ethics with my imaginary Rockerboy friends, but I guess this is just how things worked out for us, huh?"


	2. Civilising Influence

How could we not break the mirror we look at in the morning? How could we not swing at the different versions of our faces staring back between the fissures? The hurt and mangled parts of us loved the blood dried brown on our skewbald knuckles, and we had nightmares of being reined in.  
— John McCarthy, _Scared Violent Like Horses_

> **V**  
>  9:42PM  
>  Hey  
>    
>  9:42PM  
>  Ready for tonight? How you holding up?

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  9:46PM  
>  The people of Vista Del Rey have begun clutching their handbags at me when I pass by.  
>    
>  9:47PM  
>  So, I am getting some respect in Night City at last.

Despite their differences in size and experience, Oda wasted no time meeting the challenge of Takemura's gaze. Approaching with languorous strides, he clapped a palm on the older man's shoulder and jostled him a bit, his shark smile straining to hide the violence behind it.

As tonight's conversation came closer to its natural end, the subtext of the meeting made it clear that Sandayu Oda wasn't interested in relitigating Yorinobu's actions, nor trying to mitigate their world-altering collateral damage. He appeared quite comfortable with the state of post-Saburo-era Arasaka Corporation. His confidence made that clear.

"I know what you're doing." Oda reached nonchalantly into the inner pocket of his jacket – a deliberate intimidation tactic probably learned from some Corpo torturer who shared his taste in "tactical menswear" – but pulled out nothing but a metal lighter, hooked between the index and middle fingers of a thin augmented hand that appeared better suited to a pianist than a defender of corporate assets.

Undaunted, Takemura's voice held its diplomatic tone. "I am only concerned that you are beginning to think of Hanako-sama as nothing more than a means to an end."

Oda opened and closed the lighter's hinged lid idly, letting an irritating snap echo again and again off the walls of poured concrete buttressing the freeways overhead. "Why are you so worried for Hanako?" He advanced half a step into Takemura's personal space, backing him closer to the guard-rail that separated Japantown's docks from the river below.

The elder man's expression solidified into an impenetrable shield. He now recognised this conversation for what it really was: the long-delayed tantrum of an apprentice who wrongly continued to perceive him as a figure of authority. Fearing Oda would take silence as a slight, Takemura spoke up. "Are you hoping to fight me?"

The young man continued his predatory approach while Takemura, immobile, searched his peripheral vision for an escape. Adrenaline summoned a scratchy bravado in his voice when he spoke again: "Consider your decision, Oda. You are not afraid that Hanako-sama will also suffer the consequences of your actions?"

"I know what you're doing," Oda repeated.

"What is it that you believe I'm planning?"

"You want to prove your worth by embarrassing me in front of Hanako-sama. But it won't work."

A crease grew between Takemura's eyebrows. "I would not risk my life to teach you a petty lesson."

"She doesn't need you. You can't give her what I give her."

"Are you her bodyguard, or her lover?" Only now did either man realise that, at some point during this exchange, Oda had taken a fistful of Takemura's collar. Takemura's face flashed disbelief, red and shimmering with a dew of nervous sweat. His useless implants had him at a disadvantage against Oda for the first time. If their conflict came to blows, he knew it would not end well for him. He spoke again, hoping to diminish the unspoken threat with a joke – something he learned from V, perhaps. "Surely you're not hoping for a kiss from _me_ as well."

This had gone on long enough. V, lacking the patience to divine the hidden meaning behind this performative bullshit, stepped out from shadow. It was a reminder to both boys of their audience and her limited tolerance for kayfabe.

Oda turned his head and examined her with a penetrating intensity. The corners of his lips quirked upward for a half-second, like he was thumbing through an emotional glossary to find a reaction. He released Takemura's shirt, snapping out of the spell that his misguided sense of honour cast upon him. Takemura pushed the arm out of his personal space.

Both men collected themselves. A fake laugh roared out of the younger one's belly. "Takemura-san! Don't look at me like that, I'm not trying to scare you!" Steam rose from Oda's shoulders, the heat of his effort colliding with the cool evening air. Under the lone streetlight, bathed in orange, he looked like a man on fire. "How did you find this murderer, Takemura-san?"

Goro did not look in V's direction when he spoke. "Unimportant. Little more than trash pulled from a landfill, if not for the information she will provide."

V suddenly regretted stepping in. Bluster or not, it surprised her to hear Takemura describing her in these terms. Surely he was above this kind of schoolyard attempt to ingratiate himself to Arasaka by finding a common enemy in her. It felt gratuitous, even a little personal. "That's enough." Her command was uncharacteristically terse and final. "We're leaving."

The young man beamed a fat smile around their little circle, to both blank faces. So practiced and self-assured. He wanted to back down without actually appearing to back down, satisfied that by now that the message was clear: the choices he made, however Takemura or anyone else chose to interpret them, weren't up for discussion. "Hanako-sama trusts in my wisdom. That includes the consequences that may follow." He returned his gaze to Takemura. "She understands the nature of sacrifice."

"Here's to abdicating a lifetime of blame," an unseen Johnny declared wearily, raising an invisible glass toward the group. "No accountability – an enduring Arasaka tradition!"

Takemura muttered his own version of Johnny's toast, as if he was the one slowly dying of Relic poisoning instead of V: "Just the sort of moral cowardice which has always hampered your soul."

* * *

Halfway home, V broke a long silence. "Want to know what I like about Oda?"

"I think you will tell me no matter what I say."

"It's that he really manages to contain the very essence of being a fucking loser. Like he condensed loserdom into its purest form."

For the first time, V heard Takemura chuckle. He hummed in agreement, joining in her game. "Oda is... _triple-distilled_ loser."

Delighted, V continued through a peel of gentle laughter. "Really puts things in perspective when everything you ever knew and loved can suddenly look so fucking uncool." She turned toward Takemura. "After fifty years of clenching your asshole, all it took for you to seem normal and relaxed by comparison was a juvie in a Corpo costume."

Composing himself, Takemura issued a rejoinder in his usual matter-of-fact tone. "I am normal and relaxed."

The mercenary lobbed back a disinterested deadpan. "Yeah, sure. You're the most normal and relaxed social pariah in this van."

From his backseat peanut gallery, an amused Silverhand addressed Takemura in an unheard voice, cementing his place within this inaugural meeting of social pariahs: "Fuck it, choom! Society's overrated anyway!"

Their shared vestibule quieted while driver and passenger both recalled tonight's conflict. After a beat, V delivered her analysis of events: "Just wait a little while until he figures it out for real. He'll probably challenge you to a public duel just to save face."

"A duel would be... uncharacteristically bold for Oda."

"Think so? Yeah, maybe he'll just decide 'fuck this, _I'm_ without sin, _I'll_ cast the first stone', then pop you so hard in your fucking head that your face'll cave in around his fist like a water balloon."

Imagining this, Takemura's response was a pained groan from the depths of his very soul. V, manic with residual adrenaline and delirious from lack of sleep, couldn't help herself: "The minute he thinks something's amiss, he's gonna top us. We'll be across town minding our own business and he'll assume any suspicious noise is you skulking around in the alley. Probably already working on a way to make our heads explode with his mind."

The former bodyguard tacitly agreed, openly imagining the consequences their actions might have on the XBD industry for years to come: "Perhaps the illicit braindance footage will earn enough profit to build an orphanage. In this sense, we will still have committed a good deed."

She propped an elbow against the bulkhead of the passenger-side window and rested her face in her hand. "Won't even bother hiding his identity in the virtu. Even Scavs cover their faces when they kill somebody on cam. Not this gonk. He wants everybody to know."

"Oda does not care about causing trouble for himself, nor anyone else. The world is easier to navigate when you are a fool."

"Uh huh. And what about you? Do it just for fun?"

"I am not sure what you mean."

V's eyes widened. "Goro, you – you told him his _soul_ had _moral cowardice_. What does that even mean?!"

Takemura turned his head to glance in her direction, but his reply was unconcerned. "He has surely already forgotten this by now."

"Are you high? He was gonna stomp you! Fascists like him don't just suddenly mellow out and turn in their poppers the instant they start fucking the boss."

Takemura stiffened at the suggestion. V noticed but said nothing. He deserved to squirm a little for the way he described her to Oda – although she couldn't tell whether it was the idea of Oda scoring that he disliked, or if he was uncomfortable about _anyone_ jamming Princess Daughter Arasaka.

"Perhaps he has found a civilising influence in Hanako. Just as you have found one in me."

V mirrored her friend's serene smile, putting aside the residual ache of his earlier comment. She parroted a phrase he used on her a week ago: "There's still time for me to change my mind."

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  3:27AM  
>  Please tell me when you have safely arrived.

> **V**  
>  3:34AM  
>  Just got in. You?

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  3:36AM  
>  Yes. Moments ago.  
>    
>  3:55AM  
>  Goodnight, V.


	3. Duo

Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.  
—Cormac McCarthy, _All the Pretty Horses_

Two selves sat side by side in one body, raising a cigarette to their face. V sucked it in and Silverhand blew it out, a buzz of delight riding the ribbon of second-hand smoke. _Finally_. He looked forward to this nightly ritual, it being one of the more important concessions he'd wrung out of V. One cigarette, every night, at 8PM sharp. This kind of shit _anchored_ him, like marking off days on the wall of your jail cell. V didn't know it yet, but Silverhand did: the Relic's invisible reach was contaminating its container well ahead of schedule.

These things occured outside his consciousness. Whether he willed them or not.

Circuitous rivers of artificial neurons travelled up and down the brain laceration they colonised in the wake of a bullet, during the dream-saturated deathsleep between V's two lives. They bore orderly channels of transit through overwritable, untramelled grey matter, fusing themselves with her existing synapses. Like sperm seeking an egg, the Relic's chromosome-like proteins, encoded with segments of his Samskara, fertilised what was once called 'V', recombining to form a neural network containing the engram called 'Silverhand'. The Soulkiller AI of urban legends and conspiracy theories was only the first stage of what was always designed as a three-act play.

Every night, one cigarette, by which he could judge his advancing front into her senses. Johnny could smell and taste now. The echoes were getting stronger every day. Sometimes, he felt dull wavelengths of hot and cold on V's lips, or fingertips, or on her sex. Like a sudden, disorienting awakening from a dream so vivid that for a few seconds, you can still feel it lingering in your body.

* * *

Leaning back on the couch, V tracked her rising lungfuls of smoke in the dim empty air between her and the ceiling, daydreaming in the quiet darkness. She imagined Takemura in physical space, wondering what he might be doing. Skulking around food stalls? Maybe tailing someone, hiding ineffectually behind a potted plant, carrying his seat cushion under one arm?

What kind of life did he live? What did he do to pass the time? Did he have hobbies, interests, fun? Did he have sex?

She pictured him in his previous life as Saburo's stoic, silent shadow. The rooms he lived in. V remembered seeing pictures of a home belonging to an Arasaka, years ago, in a screamsheet. Some flattering article written by a publicist, and a short interview with the house's architect that she found intriguing. He explained what the built environment was supposed to evoke. How his design choices reflected his intended statement. How they synergised with the purpose of the house. The exterior was minimalist and square, a morgue of bulletproof glass and cold, hard stone. Inside, diffused lighting and wood panelling and a central, room-sized zen garden all attempted to camouflage the house's brutal, polished heart. How could anyone live in those houses? When just on the other side of that glass there reclined horizons of saguaro and strawberry cactus, canyons eroded in undulating stripes of white limestone and black shale, open air and starlight and rainfall?

Maybe he just didn't need any of it. Maybe Arasaka killed those desires in him.

She waited for his next message. For the next sign of life. V closed her eyes and centred her focus on the sensation of waiting inside her body. On how close it was to both relaxation and restlessness. On how waiting could feel like seduction, too.

A lone, unbidden memory surfaced out of the new bedrock of cross-pollinated neurons. Nighttime, a humid summer before she was born. A woman V recognised, her face in perfect, freckled detail. Reaching out to touch her with an unfamiliar limb, the weight of her cheek in the hand. Skin connecting inside a parked car. A longing desire postponed indefinitely.

Similar images pushed the previous ones out, like a slideshow, familiar but not a part of her. The two silhouettes stared at each others' mouths pathetically. The woman was only a few years older, but the gulf between them felt like a decade. It showed in her careful demeanour. She had been waiting for him. A waiting like seduction. The unashamed and direct eyes viewed across the barrel of what V now recognised as Johnny's organic arm. This meant something to him. The chain of hazy moments formed a stone so polished by Johnny's repeated handling that it might have never really existed the way V witnessed it now. A memory accessed so often, it distorts inside its owner's recollection like a funhouse mirror. Both true and false simultaneously, without collapsing under its own contradictions.

Takemura was familiar in that same distant way. He gave the same sensation of burning on the back of V's neck as the woman did when she laid a hand on Johnny's thigh. A gesture that said everything that could be said. The long, silent minute during which his blood sang.

He struggled not to picture it alongside V. The memory always came accompanied by the enduring fantasy that new action was always possible – that even now, Rogue might still be there, waiting for him. He was aware of the way the fantasy easily overwrote his self-control. It was a chimera of addiction, a brain chemistry bedfellow of Johnny's most intimate urges and delusions.

They both saw the soft sighing of Laguna Bend fifty years ago or more, before it was a reservoir. Just a moonlit crater which appeared, from the car, like an infinite black auditorium just beyond the windshield. V could feel Johnny's emotions, both past and present, as they moved inside her. The endless kiss an anaesthetic that rounded down the sharp corners of loss and loneliness.

"You wanna talk about it, Johnny?"

There was a lonesome quality to these conversations with the ghost in her head, knowing what she knew now about Johnny's regrets concerning Rogue.

"No, I don't particularly wanna talk about it, V. Lemme give you some advice instead."

He interrupted their shared daydream in his unhurried cadence, and materialised opposite V, hunkered down on the couch. "Kinda getting the notion you're interested in courting Little Orphan Arasaka while he's on his disgrace rumspringa."

"There's no fooling you, huh?"

"Hey, I'm just askin' you to think critically. A lifer like him would never just cut his losses and retire." He paused for effect, flicking away the butt end of a cigarette, which evaporated mid-arc into blue static. "Think about it, V. If you ask him what he wants, he won't have the imagination to picture anything besides reanimating papa Saburo." He rose, pacing around the room, suddenly electrified – as if he had to stay well ahead of whatever force animated him, like it might catch up to them both if he stopped. "You wanna know why? 'Cause for the truly miserable squares who walk among us, happiness is a hard-faced old man yelling orders through a mouthful of porridge."

Unconvinced, V offered a conciliatory shrug. "Give the guy a little credit. Like... remember how hard it was, growing up, to realise your parents were just winging it all the time? The brain really, really doesn't wanna walk through that door, because on some level, you can sense that your innocence dies on the other side of it. You step through, and suddenly you're reckoning with knowing your dad's a deadbeat. Probably an order of magnitude harder when dad's also a childhood hero who pays your salary."

Johnny shook his head. "Got a hard time believing someone like him thinks anybody else really exists." He spoke in a deliberate staccato that mimicked the thrifty economy of his body, occasionally driving one pointing finger into the open palm of his opposite hand – for emphasis. "Like one of those cult leaders with a lukewarm IQ who thinks you can just _choose_ to exit society? No, couldn't give a fuck if everybody around him was just a fuckin' hologram." He returned to his seat across from her. "Here's my professional opinion: he doesn't see you or anybody else as a person with a future and a past and memories and wants. You're just a useful sidearm that he bumped into during his vengeance arc, and you're not gonna talk him out of it by telling him Arasaka's the devil."

A long silence hung in the air between them while V processed Silverhand's diagnosis. In the meantime, Johnny clapped a hand to her knee in a symbolic token he imagined made his conclusion seem more credible, more honest. Like he was really givin' it to you straight.

"Look at it this way: if you haven't had a dick in your mouth in the past twelve months, that's called 'being on a roll'."

V choked on the sudden tonal shift, baying out a single surprised laugh. "Been a little busy, John."

"Yeah, well, whatever you gotta tell yourself to get through the day. Point is, you're not breakin' a combo like that with somebody you don't even know well enough to fistfight." He pulled back, sucking one last taste of beer out of a long-empty bottle. "Which isn't to say you shouldn't fight him. Look, V, I want you to be happy. If suckin' dick makes you happy on your death march head-first into an Arasaka lobotomy, so be it. But until you know its motives and intentions, this particular dick isn't the one you need to be pursuing."


	4. Onigiri

The corners of Takemura's mouth tightened into a scowl. "You should not provoke a customer," he stabbed his finger into one of the images on the menu, "by advertising onigiri... if you do not offer onigiri."

"We do have onigiri but it's a side, sir. You have to order something else. I can't give you just onigiri."

"Why have you placed a photograph of onigiri here? What is this, if not onigiri?"

The cook gave a disinterested glance at the picture of onigiri under the man's finger. "I didn't make the menu."

"But you accept to work here."

"I – listen, choom, they just pay me to serve the food."

The puzzled cook leaned forward, his focus trading off between the stranger's cruel mouth and his hard, hawk-like eyes, struggling to grasp the underlying relevance of this conversation. Takemura explained ungraciously, his face becoming flush from the struggle to control himself: "You are aware of the deceit. Yet, you continue your work in spite of it." He inhaled, starting again. "This menu – it is an emblem of trust between merchant and consumer. However... it contains deliberate falsehoods. I wish to know why your knowledge of this deception has not turned you away from this immoral work."

A scoff. The younger man put some bass in his voice. "I told you, man, I'm just paid to serve the food," he insisted, crossing his arms. He was losing patience for the blunt instrument sitting opposite him. This was not the first customer today who tried wheedling him into a free meal. "If you're not gonna buy anything, then get the fuck out of here."

The displaced anger grew in Takemura's throat. "No, you are wrong. Your wage is earned through your complicity. It is paid in the suffering of your victims."

"Nah, you haven't suffered yet, buddy, but you will if you don't hit the fuckin' bricks."

"Who is the proprietor?"

" _Excuse me_?"

Takemura inspected the bead curtain just beyond the cook's shoulder. "He lives there, in the back?" With the side of his fist, he gave the wall two smacks, like the owner would be able to hear it back there, in his assumed home. The implicit threat of it.

"Alright, shitbird, you wanna eat?" The cook opened the interface of his holo, silently summoning the NCPD. "Let's see if the cops'll feed you a helping of sidewalk, huh?"

Takemura finally stood, staring cold-eyed at the irate vendor for just a second longer before stomping away.

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  11:27PM  
>  I have visited the food vendor you recommended.
> 
> 11:28PM  
>  Though, I am not sure why.

> **V**  
>  11:49PM  
>  Sorry, didn't see this in time  
> 
> 
> 11:52PM  
>  Wait, what happened?

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  11:55PM  
>  Nothing of consequence.
> 
> 11:57PM  
>  I doubt the onigiri is edible, let alone worth the inconvenience of a debate.

> **V**  
>  12:00AM  
>  Goro  
> 
> 
> 12:01AM  
>  Did you start an argument with the waitstaff?

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  12:29AM  
>  No.

> **V**  
>  12:31AM  
>  Uh huh...
> 
> 12:32AM  
>  Wish I could've joined you tonight instead of spending the evening abducted by a power couple in a luxury sedan :P

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  12:32AM  
>  YOy haev escadpe
> 
> 12:32AM  
>  YOu have escaped??
> 
> 12:33AM  
>  V, kindly confirm that you are not in danger!

> **V**  
>  12:34AM  
>  No no don't worry. Not in danger, just kidding around. Didn't get kidnapped, they hired me to track down some info. Sorry.
> 
> 12:36AM  
>  And sorry about missing your invite. Hope you weren't too disappointed to take on the NC foodie guide alone :)

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  12:37AM  
>  Until you are able to accompany me, I will pursue other interests

> **V**  
>  12:43AM  
>  You okay, Goro?

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  12:56AM  
>  Yes. But it is late. Goodnight, V.


	5. Rental

And the end of all our exploring  
Will be to arrive where we started  
And know the place for the first time.  
— T. S. Eliot, _Little Gidding_

Over the last hours of daylight, Takemura and V observed the activity in the open-air staging area of an Arasaka warehouse from the relative safety of a rooftop overlooking it. With the task of surveillance mostly finished, they sat quietly side-by-side. Takemura's eyes were closed. Despite the expressionless cast on his face, his mind stayed sharp and aware. V continued her slow scan of the landscape, but neither of them expected to learn anything more tonight. Their task would be finished soon. The last half-hour of sunset was sinking behind the walls of the warehouse below, and for a few minutes, she could watch as it caught the rough texture of the glittering tarmac that surrounded their crow's nest.

Takemura opened his eyes a fraction. "A strange perspective. To watch them from above."

V turned her attention to the movement at ground-level. "Almost looks choreographed from all the way up here."

"Yes. With some distance, Arasaka becomes small. An unremarkable detail in the scenery of this city."

She imagined herself there, among the soldiers, infiltrating the warehouse. "Whole world outside it, too, that nobody in there can see."

Takemura seemed not to notice the conspicuous analogy, or was uninterested in deliberating what V meant by it. He continued observing the motion inside the square while his thoughts slowly pulled him elsewhere.

The building from atop which they surveilled Arasaka settled into quiet. Underneath the fizz of nearby traffic, there was only a bare whisper of hidden life. V could hear the sighing ventilation system. Infrequently, the motor of a distant CHOOH2 generator strained to keep some floodlights alive in the parking lot. A common homemade crime deterrent.

"Goro?"

The man's rough voice reawakened. "Yes."

"How do you feel?"

He twisted around to look at her attentively, but her eyes stayed fixed on the city beyond the half-walls of their rooftop. Without knowing why, she could tell the question tensioned him.

More and more, Takemura struggled to overcome the punch-drunk effect she had on him. Even without her questions, it was a test of will not to snap at her – to suddenly dissipate into knee-jerk frustration at his own lack of control. He waited a long time before speaking.

"A lifetime of service to Arasaka has afforded me many privileges. I would not have experienced them were I living any other life. Yet, here I sit, outside Arasaka, and I feel no envy for the soldiers still inside."

V thought, _you don't envy them now only because you know some of them might be dead in a week thanks to us_. He didn't appear as carefree as he pretended to be – more like an unwanted dog limping back to the home that abandoned it.

With any emotional distance from Arasaka, he might have been able to identify the long-neglected parts of himself causing the conflict refused to acknowledge. Did he think the simple act of leaving would be enough to wake him from the trance, as if no longer belonging to Arasaka was the same as wiping away all the influence its oppressive structure ever had on him?

She searched his face. A bit of black and white stubble grew in patches above the line of his beard. "Which privileges did you value the most?"

The answer came with no hesitation: "Freedom." A moment passed, and he attempted to elaborate:

"As a child, I did not feel free, despite having what you call 'freedom'. Free to roam, yes – free to cause trouble or pain, to drink alcohol, free to find danger, should I want it. That was not freedom for me, however. It was fear. I did not have a protector to watch over me, or to explain what I struggled to understand. Friends would often join me, but just as often, not so. It was no one's duty to take care of me except myself. This is not a safe feeling for a child. It is many decisions one does not possess the experience to make.

"Arasaka-sama offered a lifetime of purest freedom – not only stability and structure, but identity. There suddenly existed no questions without answers. No more conflict over food or money, and no longer the need for fear. Purpose came to me through self-discipline. I believe Hanako-sama also understands this lesson. This is also why I have always felt we share a common bond."

"Service toward something bigger than yourself?"

"Yes. Becoming part of a whole."

Inspired to share in kind, V offered him a view into her past.

"Big part of leaving the Bakkers – Nomad clan I told you about – was thinking I was supposed to find something, some purpose, like you did with Arasaka. At first it seemed like I just had to get better at impersonating myself. Took a long time to come around to the fact that there's no costume that'll ever make you feel like yourself. And even longer to know that I wasn't really looking for one after all. In the end, it felt more like... what I need to know is whether there's a way of existing that doesn't feel like wearing a costume. I wanted to meet whoever I am underneath it."

"And, who are you?"

Her gaze returned to the skyline in twilight. "Used to think the best way to find out was just accepting whatever version of me came out on the other side of change. But it's starting to feel like what I really am, what we all are, is... no one."

Takemura meditated on this. During the conversations they shared, he would often fail to realise in the moment how much common ground existed between himself and the woman he pulled out of a landfill. Despite the overwhelming clash of desire and terror he concealed behind an unmoving face, some unexamined part of him still saw V the way he described her to Oda – ordinary trash, soon to be discarded. The distance, a deep-rooted technique to emotionally separate himself from his would-be targets, wouldn't allow him to fully relate to her.

"Answers to these questions do not truly exist. They are only a prelude to more questions." He spoke with a finality, as if the statement was self-evident.

These intimate talks occasionally made the people closest to V feel like the farthest, which was equal parts banal and terrifying. It exposed language as the blunt and inaccurate tool it was, and made her wish there existed a way to speak with Goro that called forth the same richness of sensation as eating, or sex. She remembered a similar conversation with Jackie, equally convinced of his own argument as Takemura appeared to be now. She smiled at the surprise recognition of some similarity between them. The memory of Jackie preoccupied her, especially now that the Dashi Parade was only days away. For all his silly bravado, Jack was methodical on a job. There hadn't existed another opportunity to pull something like this off until now, and their diligent preparation felt a bit like honouring his memory. But reminders of Jackie meant reminders of Jackie's death, too.

"What about closure? Things left unsaid?"

Takemura raised an eyebrow. "You wish to atone for your misdeeds?"

"My misdeeds?"

"A life without honour. As the end approaches, you are filled with regret and shame."

V could usually tell when he was joking, but this time it hurt like an insult. Takemura was like that, as she was beginning to discover. When he made a joke, it didn't matter who else was in on it. The joke was for himself.

"Closer to longing than regret," she corrected him, thinking of the false starts between Johnny and Rogue, and the duelling voices inside her that urged her forward and backward simultaneously with Takemura himself.

Johnny, sitting on the lip of the half-wall behind them, noticed what she was trying to do. "Blood from a stone, V."

"We must learn to live without this knowledge. Your closure, it is supposed to bring comfort. But comfort and discomfort are illusions. Wrong ideas." Takemura paused, rethinking his approach. "V. Consider your heartbeat."

"What?"

"Close your eyes."

He watched her closely, waiting until she followed his instructions, then continued:

"Feel your breathing. Your heartbeat. The optics sharpening your vision. These things occur outside your consciousness. Whether you will them or not.

"Your brain, lungs, your heart, the cyberware implanted throughout your body. Together, these are what we call 'V'... 'V' is something which you have, in a similar way that you possess weapons, valuables, clothing."

His vision traced the contours of her. When her eyes flickered open again, they found his and followed them, noticing their meandering path up her body. He continued. "They are all possessions. None is immutable, all will decay. From a certain point of view, they are _レンタル_ – a rental. You cannot keep any of them."

She slouched against the brick, saying nothing, listening to the rough voice in the city's absence of darkness.

"The mind which observes this is similarly a rental. We may identify more strongly with our minds, because they do not decay as quickly as our bodies, but the fragility of memory proves no parts of us are immutable. The Relic has saved you from one death, but I do not believe you to be immortal."

Johnny appeared again, eager to pack it in. This time, he paced across her field of vision, a dozen feet back. "They teach this in Arasaka boot camp? Ego Death for Beginners?"

Takemura grew louder as his central argument drew closer. "We exist beyond the bodies called Takemura Goro and V. We can make these bodies move, and imagine anything we wish, but these bodies trap us. The Takemura and V prisons severely limit our ability to accomplish our goals."

V frowned. "Don't got a choice about that, Goro." Silverhand's impatient tone bled into her voice.

Takemura interrupted with a stern correction: "Quiet. I am not finished."

She stared, the dark voids of her unblinking eyes boring into his hard gaze and urging him forward. He went on:

"If we are injured severely enough, these, our prisons, will die. And everything known as Takemura and V will disappear from this world. It is not even a matter of 'if' – it is a matter of 'when'. We may succeed in our mission. But even if we are not killed, time will eventually bring frailty and death."

"Okay... so, what are we doing here? Why are we helping each other, if nothing matters in the end?"

"By which values should we judge what matters?"

She looked away, scanning the dim skyline for a non-existent rejoinder. Takemura's voice softened.

"V. My future is as uncertain as yours. My identity, my former life, has also ceased to exist. You ask me about closure. Of things left unfinished. I will not pretend to know what awaits on the other side of this... We both find ourselves in a struggle for ownership of our selves. You are uniquely able to look into the eyes of the disease which is slowly unmaking you. But perhaps ownership itself is the illusion.

"When last we spoke, you were curious to know how I pass the time. Since the death of Arasaka-sama, I have meditated. This was not necessary before – I did not understand the purpose. I did not need the comfort of closure, nor did I ask myself unanswerable questions. I did not carry the burden of decisions as I did when I was a child.

"I believe we are seeking the same experience of freedom. A freedom from the desire for closure, and from its alluring illusion of comfort. A freedom from burdensome cycles of questions and answers. Such an emancipation demands that we embrace the impermanence of a 'self'. To reject ownership over our memories, our personal histories... even the very moment which we inhabit.

"Perhaps this rejection would make possible another reality. I cannot imagine what may happen in such a world... But I think no one will find it necessary to build digital prisons for the personality engrams of the dead."

A directionless ache of sadness bruised her inside. V felt a grimace gathering at the corners of her mouth. She didn't look at Takemura for a long time. When she did, she saw the same hard face as before. Reflections of distant neon, gliding frictionless across the chrome roads in his flesh, reminded her that the sun had set. It was nighttime. Their job on this rooftop was over. There was nothing else to say. The silence was a small kindness from a man in darkness with a pounding heart.

"Goro?"

"Yes."

"Are you afraid?"

Motorcades of heavy vehicles flowed in and out on invisible currents below. The sound of their tires pounding the metal threshold of the warehouse entrance marked off the seconds of silence.

He knew the lie he would tell her, but still took the time to consider the question.

"No."

Without taking his eyes off the staging ground below, Goro blindly reached across the gap between them. His fingertips advanced into empty air, feeling for the braid of hands she rested on her lap. When his touch registered, bare as a whisper, the hands he found parted like lips wanting a kiss, drawing his into hers, welcoming the whole world of Takemura Goro inside. One handful, then every future handhold wishing it was this.


	6. Rattlesnake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **CW** : suicide mention, non-graphic descriptions of torture (PG-13, max), and brief non-graphic sex.

"'We've reached another morning, full of hope. Let's have a productive day and follow our dreams.' That's what my dumb friend used to say. Now he's dead."  
— _Cutie and the Boxer_

Two young men stood face-to-face under the awning of a tiny izakaya, trapped by a curtain of heavy rain until their taxi arrived. Both faces carried sedate, drunk smiles, their bellies full of warmth. The taller man spoke between two long drags of his cigarette, savouring it like a dessert: "What are your plans for the rest of the night, Take-kun? You in the mood for a cigar? Meet some of my friends?"

The bright, easygoing Tanaka Aito was two years ahead of Takemura in school. Their age difference was too wide for the boys to cultivate a close friendship, but growing up together had still built a bond of unspoken trust between them. They lived on the same floor in the Arasaka student housing complex until their late teens, when the Corporation assigned them to cities at opposite extremes of Japan to cultivate their skills.

Almost three years ago, Tanaka was assigned to the Banking Division in Osaka. During that time, he had flourished, earning company accolades for his creativity and fastidiousness. Takemura spent the last six months living in Sapporo, under the rigid discipline of the Arasaka Hokkaido Training Academy. Both men arrived in Tokyo this week at the behest of the Corporation, but were unaware of each other until a chance encounter reunited them in the lobby of the new Konpeki Plaza.

The charismatic banker insisted they seize the opportunity of such a happy coincidence over dinner. Through the last hours of evening, the old acquaintances ate, drank and recaptured the careful complicity they knew as boys, while Aito graciously shepherded Goro through a version of Tokyo the younger man didn't recognise. In this inverted world ruled by reputation and word-of-mouth, Tanaka's name and position opened doors inaccessible to Takemura, whose uninvited presence was never a celebrated occasion, not even within Arasaka. It was certainly not a key to unlock the underworlds of back-room casinos, bare-knuckle boxing rings or VIP-only dollhouses. The preferential treatment Takemura occasionally received from ripperdocs or weapons dealers (and the occasional sleepy-eyed bureaucrat) were not gestures of goodwill toward Takemura Goro himself, but favours extracted through fear for what he symbolised.

"It's getting late. I'd feel guilty for insinuating myself between you and your bed —" Goro playfully checked his watch for the time, feigning disinterest in the invitation, "— but, out of curiosity, who might these friends of yours be? Do I know them?"

"Are you playing hard-to-get?"

"Not at all," A conspiratorial smile crept up Takemura's face. "I'm very serious about avoiding any unnecessary convergences with Arasaka this week."

A scantily-clad social call might have appeared downright lewd in the sobriety of daylight, but several hours spent marinading in shōchū had considerably softened Goro's inhibitions. Tonight, he had been allowed into the nameless underworld that "civilians", as Aito called them, could never learn of, or access. Takemura had nothing to exchange for this generosity besides a few more hours of his company; a small price to pay for a glimpse behind the curtain. In accepting the invitation, he also saw an opportunity to enjoy himself for a few more hours without the risk of Arasaka Corporation discovering it and using it against him. And, for some reason, Aito seemed to actually _like_ him. It felt enthralling to earn the respect and friendship of someone so highly regarded by their peers.

There was no one like Aito at the Training Academy. While all Arasaka recruits shared a serious and driven temperament, those chosen for higher education in Hokkaido possessed a cold control that made them appear lifeless and static. No one but Takemura seemed desperate for an outlet to counterbalance the constant moral injury of each cruel new exercise. He was an excellent marksman and a talented investigator, but counter-intelligence skills were not enough to satisfy the Academy's graduation requirements. The truth of Takemura's reality fell into place the night he was brought to an empty, featureless warehouse and taught that bending a human being to one's will required no false pretences, no cunning. Just the correct instruments and an absence of mercy.

There was no way to _learn_ the impassive detachment required to touch someone's body in a way that produced information. It would either arrive as a by-product of training, or wouldn't. What training left behind inside Takemura was only weakness and hesitation, and the conviction that these liabilities would eventually expose him as a fraud. Unlike Aito's rising star, Goro had spent his six months of higher education paralysed by the fear of being discovered as fundamentally broken, and therefore unworthy of respect and dignity.

Despite the slow fragmentation of his personhood, it was too late for Takemura to reconsider the career he spent his life pursuing. He was chosen for Arasaka by the hand of fate itself, and abandoning this path would be worse than betrayal. In order to survive, Goro knew his choices were either a lifetime of privately shouldering this burden forever, or permanent exile. He was certainly too worthless and debased by now to redeem himself by _jisatsu_.

Social pressure was familiar territory for Takemura. In Hokkaido, it came with every command that made him act against his own virtues. This was the burden of Arasaka Corporation's sinister expectations for its soldiers. The moral injury manifested in Takemura as the need to appear different than he was, both to himself and to everyone else. Tonight, instead of the shame used as spurs by his instructors, Tanaka offered Goro the chance, for a brief moment, to belong. To a twenty-year-old man whose tamed and civilised exterior masked so much self-hatred and revulsion, this was the most seductive force of all. Takemura Goro's uninvited presence was a celebrated occasion for the first time in his life. Without hesitation, he surrendered himself to the easy fun of a nightcap in a penthouse hot tub with three beautiful women and their host.

"Take-kun, have you considered switching careers?" Goro felt the spotlight of the group's attention land on him. From across the shimmering water, the woman named Eiko addressed him, with a voice that snapped off her lips like a snare drum. She smiled, holding onto him with curious eyes. "Tanaka-kun's craven profit-mongering is proof that now, more than ever, our country needs intimidating tax collectors such as yourself."

It would've been impolite to openly flirt in front of the others. Until they had a convincing enough impression of privacy, Takemura communicated his interest by giving Eiko his undivided attention. In exchange, she eagerly returned his careful advances. Her forthrightness made him forthright. Her candour made him sincere. Her laughter gave him confidence. Her direct, unafraid gaze worked to decipher him, as if her eyes could tunnel straight through his chest to peek into his heart.

In the sitting room, after leaving the spa once everyone's fingerprints had pruned beyond their tolerance, Eiko was the one to push them forward. "I'm here to pay my taxes," she floated out between them, without a hint of irony. Goro leaned into the kiss that followed with a smile, holding onto the fist that clung to the collar of his damp shirt. He soon took his own handful of her sweater, not to push her backward or break apart, but because it was his turn to decipher her, to feel the foreign heartbeat and compare it to his own. The onlookers, drunk and complicit in the secret of their earlier spa-bound nudity, popped with happy laughter.

Later, when he and Eiko pushed into the safe harbour of her apartment, Takemura felt anonymous and free. There was no old man examining him with rattlesnake eyes, humming while he decided where to burrow into Goro's flesh and ferret out the truth. There was no commanding voice of an angry father figure echoing in his soul. There was nothing but the blank, free exploration of hands and lips, then the final push inside.

He had fooled around as a teenager, in spite of the fact that fraternisation between students was strictly prohibited. Those rare occasions were always marked with hasty awkwardness as they oscillated between fevered groping then freezing in place like frightened rabbits, listening for any approaching footsteps. It surprised Goro how naturally the gestures came to him now, without any wasted time or energy, as if she'd provided a roadmap to every needful divot and cluster of nerves. It was a routine made rote through repetition under the careful supervision of that small grey man whose face was a grotesque smudge in his nightmares.

Takemura already knew what it felt like to plunge an extension of himself into a human body. He knew that agony and pleasure both followed the same rising lines and plateaus. He knew how to follow up each stroke with another, until a crescendo of gushing warmth and screaming agony gave way to a delirious peak. He knew the sound of someone begging for the end, and the final, long silence of release.

Weeks later, Takemura and Eiko met a second time, crashing together with a hunger sharpened by time and distance. They undressed each other quickly, vibrating with soft laughter, until he noticed the taste of blood in his mouth during an eager kiss. The duo had already practised these poses while drunk, but performing them sober wouldn't let Takemura divorce this physical act from the memory of vomit stinging his nostrils, or the thunderous heartbeat surging behind his eardrums. It didn't make him forget that he learned how to touch her by learning how to hurt someone else. Fucking her didn't turn his feelings of self-hatred into feelings of affection, it only reminded him of the competing demands between his inner and outer selves. These things occured outside his consciousness, whether he willed them or not. Feeling him crumble, Eiko stopped contacting him, and stopped taking his calls.

The choice had been made long ago, for him and for the rest of his peers. There was no escape from Arasaka Corporation; no changing the way it functioned or what it demanded of its many agents. Over the next forty years, Takemura's zealous devotion would be the pound of flesh that Arasaka Corporation extracted in exchange for his continuing survival. His natural gentleness and empathy were slowly suppressed, hidden behind a curtain that not even the long-forgotten Tanaka Aito could pull back. The omnipotent voice of Arasaka Saburo that lived in his head became the final deadbolt to lock out the secret pain which kept a closer watch on him than the Corporation itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (wresting character sheet from CDPR) i am backstory captain now


	7. 美

I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.  
—Richard Siken, _Crush_

Takemura moved slowly across the warehouse floor, his task now finished. There was one exit: a window, twenty-eight feet above his head, at the far end of a catwalk suspended from the rafters. On the other side of this window, under the fire escape, V would be waiting with a getaway vehicle. He climbed a tower of metal pallet racks, silent as falling snow, and paused at the top, motionless. The warehouse interior was blind-dark besides a faint halo of exterior light around that overhead window, which he used to get his bearings while gliding through the unfamiliar scenery. As he approached it, his body cloaked everything in the window's line of sight, casting an enormous Takemura-shaped silhouette over the jagged stacks of freight containers behind him.

He remembered the home of his father's mother, hugged between three office buildings. Money and modernisation had either levelled or consumed the surrounding homes until there wasn't a single wooden construction for kilometres, besides the two-room _minka_ built by Takemura's ancestors. After they subsumed everything else, the tall, narrow columns of concrete gradually began encroaching upon the tiny house, too. Years before Takemura was born, the obscuring landscape had already made its modest windows useless. The city of tightly-packed towers blocked out all natural light except what little came through the translucent washi which papered the entranceway. At night, young Goro and his grandmother would use crank-powered flashlights to find their way.

Takemura could almost smell the memory-laden scent of mildew. Multivitamins. Burning trash.

It seemed to him like too much time had passed by now for V to be anywhere besides awaiting his arrival below. When his phone interface lit up a text message in soft electronic light, the whole warehouse glittered yellow. Takemura froze, looking down at himself to find and snuff out the offending screen. He cursed silently. Had he been discovered? Did anyone notice? He bound into a dead hustle for the end of the catwalk – his path to the fire escape – and squatted behind the window, listening for V. He heard the unintelligible patter of faraway advertisements, and an occasional laugh from nearby pedestrians. Someone down there was noodling around with a guitar, but stopped suddenly and became quiet, like they were listening for something. A long moment of silence. The windowpane was watery black, reflecting his panic-stricken face. For a second he thought he might have seen a secondary blackness pass before it, but finally must not have.

A figure dressed in dark clothing collided heavily into the fire escape from somewhere above, and the precarious iron cage rattled like the reverberation of a giant bell. Takemura, startled, dropped abruptly into a seated position. He knew exactly what this announced. The predictable final flourish of V's cyberware-enhanced parkour across the neighbourhood. He pictured her bouncing from rooftop to rooftop in a leaping-salmon pose, like the hero of an old Hong Kong _wuxia_ film. A beautiful and utterly stupid spectacle that Takemura frowned at. When the movement and noise stopped, he threw the window open, stuck his head out, and looked around anxiously. "V?" The drop from fire escape to the ground was too far for him to risk without any functioning cyberware. His best outcome would still mean severe injury. What would he do now, if she was dead? Typical selfish merc, always showing off!

* * *

The street was quiet and dark as the rest, and the building appeared empty from outside. A solitary exterior light shone like a beacon, guiding V's leaps across rooftops to the fire escape that Goro described in his messages. Like any great undertaking, tonight was partially improvisation, and partially planned. She had memorised the route in jumps and pulls and swings of her bionic limbs: first, from street to rooftop, then another rooftop, then up an HVAC tower. After warning him of her impending arrival via text message, she would take a running start, then gracefully float across four lanes of traffic. With silent elegance, V would finally arrive in Takemura's designated landing zone like a beautiful butterfly.

> **V**  
>  9:52PM  
>  Heads up!

The fire escape was a narrow, tight space, more compact than it appeared from above, and during the free-fall through several crumbling layers of twisted iron grate, she wondered why Goro was so adamant on meeting here. The awful noise of her ricocheting inbound trajectory would surely attact more attention than he wanted. He probably locked himself in. Typical Corpo lunchmeat, always doing shit backwards.

_So, the funny thing is,_

V began to imagine how she might explain this blunder to an incensed Takemura after caroming off opposite walls of the human-sized basket she lay in, winded and mentally scanning her body for injury. From her supine position, she summoned the Galena with her phone then slipped into a secondary thought after realising Takemura would soon have to _see_ her utterly demolished vehicle. This was, maybe, the only thing that bothered her about their devil's plans tonight.

Through some convoluted mental gymnastics, V might explain to her passenger that fucking up her possessions was not the same as acting carelessly, even though no one else who'd seen the deep gashes and pockmarks decorating the entire vehicle would share that interpretation. 

She rehearsed the upcoming conversation with Takemura anyway, knowing that if for some reason he chose to ignore the car's unfortunate exterior, he'd probably take exception to her refusal to obey the city's parking by-laws later on. A former Nomad, V had a particular, passionate distaste for spending money on street parking, and the resulting willingness to shim her car into places it wasn't intended to fit partially accounted for its appearance:

 _But the funny thing is, Goro, see, a couple days ago, this client wants me to look into Lucius Rhyne's death. Found out Rhyne was assassinated and that Weldon Holt covered it up with the NCPD's help. Everybody involved in that goatfuck's on the public payroll, right? Hard not to see a connection between what the city extracts and where that all ends up. What it funds. You got a social worker, Goro?_ , she made a mental note to change that part, knowing he'd never acknowledge that he was technically homeless, _Somebody making sure you've got a hot meal and roof over your head? Or are you left to your own devices in a squat, knowing they'd rather see you die than give you anything for free? Couldn't live with myself, to willingly contribute to that kind of delusional and destructive system. Can't just accept the same learned helplessness that infects everybody else in this city. They get more than enough out of me unwillingly. But, V, you might say, deciding not to pay for parking is just the absence of action and is therefore meaningless. Anyone can excuse their cheapness by claiming they don't agree with whatever they're not paying for. Well, Goro, to balance one's karmic checkbook, just gotta find the opportunities to help real people. Toss a couple eddies to a homeless veteran, or fly into Rancho Coronado to save you from being trapped inside a known Animals clubhouse which, by the way, uhhh, what the fuck, Goro? Do you know who you're fucking with by trespassing in there?_

Back in the present, V climbed to her feet and stood there, in half-light and darkness, tipping her head just a little and smiling. She was wrapped up in the sight of a very angry Takemura poking his head out of a nearby window, his head turned away from her. "Well, well, well," she began quietly, hoping not to startle him. "Whatcha doing loitering around here, Goro?"

* * *

When the Galena came into view, Takemura remembered their meeting in Tom's Diner. What enormous nerve she must possess, to present him with this disgraceful car after such a brazen ridicule of his spinal alignment cushion. It looked like a crumpled piece of paper. He wondered how the intact windows, of all things, could have possibly survived her mistreatment.

He addressed V without taking his eyes off the wreck. "Finally, you will receive the comeuppance you deserve." When they reached the vehicle, Takemura crossed his arms, stopping short to study it shrewdly. "Origami car."

"Here we go." She folded her arms to match his, leaning against the hood with a wry grin. "Hurry up and get the jokes out of your system, we've got places to be."

He shook his head disapprovingly. "Bringing this here was disrespectful to the entire neighbourhood."

"C'mon, it's better inside, when you don't have to see it." V circled around the sad little car and opened the passenger-side door, swallowing a chuckle. Using all the unnecessary formality of a cartoon chauffeur, she ushered Takemura into his seat with a comical sweep of her hand. "Your steed awaits."

He took his time climbing in, still shaking his head and feigning disgust. "Have you been driving into mortars?"

* * *

V turned the car through the maze of a deserted industrial park, slowly leaving Rancho Coronado. "Paid the Animals a visit tonight." She spoke flatly, keeping her eyes on the road. "Doesn't seem like your kind of crowd."

"I have learned of a complex doping operation involving the Animals gangsters and several local gyms."

"Somebody paying you to take that kind of risk?"

"Yes." Takemura didn't see the need to elaborate.

"Good. If something happens, don't take them on alone. Please. Don't want you to get hurt or worse."

Takemura bit back his perfunctory anger, stewing resentfully in a long silence of his own making. Feeling weak, or even the suspicion of being seen that way, offended him deeply, although he no longer remembered why. He was tired; his judgment and concentration had begun to lapse. Fear and anger shackled him easily, and these knee-jerk reactions had been a habit for so long that he mistook them for his true feelings. The hard stone of shame in his throat, the frustration in his belly. They felt like old friends. The ancient hurt was familiar ground, and familiar ground was always easiest to traverse.

"I have evaded their detection until now," he offered, the hollows of his temples straining outward as he clamped his molars together. "Perhaps, if the unthinkable happens, I will contact you."

Soon they connected with a main thoroughfare and V's little ruined car accelerated, the wind whistling against its hard angles. Their first stop was the waterfront on the northern edge of Watson, where three of Wakako Okada's sons – "the only ones I trust with this task," she said – awaited at coordinates provided only once V arrived at the docks. This was an unofficial delivery, commissioned by Wakako with the unspoken implication that it would serve as partial payment for information about the Dashi Parade. Strictly speaking, Takemura's presence wasn't absolutely necessary, but since he benefited from Wakako's help as much as V did, she found it only fair to test his mettle.

"Thanks for helping me with this, Goro." V spoke quietly, reverent of the rare silence. They hadn't seen another car since passing over Kabuki. It almost made the city seem barren.

"Thank you as well, for the not-very-subtle extraction. Have you finally decided to tell me about our task?"

"Ah-ah-ah, you'll know soon enough." V slowed the car then turned into an empty lot between two storage hangars and parked conspicuously under the cone of the nearest streetlight. Wakako may trust her sons, but that didn't mean anybody else did. "Stay here, this won't take long."

She had already stepped halfway out of the car when Goro pulled her back inside. "V. Tell me why we are here."

"Didn't really think Wakako would just hand over those detes for free, didja? Look, it shouldn't be too much trouble. Picking up a package here, and... uh, kinda... losing it on purpose somewhere else. Got a special surprise waiting for you when we're done."

Takemura scowled at her underhanded vagueness. "I will not help you carry out another foolish caper."

V sighed and sat back against her seat, closing the car door behind her. She explained that Wakako had steered her, over the months, into a handful of decent work, and hadn't provided any information or advice that didn't eventually prove her right in the end – even if it took the distance of hindsight to know that for sure. Plus, the elderly fixer deliberately kept her dealings small-time. She had no designs on anyone else's territory, nor in aligning with any Corporations. Better the devil you know, as Wakako herself often said, and Jig-Jig Street provided more than enough devils for her. "We're just delivering a package, Goro. No capers. Especially none so foolish as uncovering a steroid conspiracy in Rancho Coronado then accidentally locking yourself in the warehouse, huh?" She underscored her point with a tight and mirthless smile, then exited the vehicle.

Johnny, taking to the driver's seat now that V was gone, beamed with familial pride for his little protege. He sucked his teeth then slowly, with all the smugness he could possibly muster, draped an arm across the back of Takemura's seat. In a soundless voice, he whispered into the Corpo's unhearing ear: "Truth hurts."

Leaving the vehicle on his own recognisance, Takemura hurried to join his partner, jogging to catch up before she disappeared behind a shipping container. What awaited around the corner were three overfed giants, all at least two metres tall and none older than twenty, whose enormous waistlines gave them the countenance of fat-faced, lumbering toddlers. They were dressed almost identically, in pastel-coloured silk bomber jackets, their given names embroidered on each large son's breast in both Kana and Latin characters. When they noticed the approaching duo, all three Okadas stared rapt at Goro, bowing deeply, almost too shy to look directly at him. The one with _Courageous_ embroidered on his jacket spoke up first. His brothers _Treasure_ and _Lucky_ quickly joined in.

"Takemura-sensei, you're the contact?"

"How do you know our mom?"

"Can we take a picture together?"

"Takemura-sensei, is this a secret mission?"

Goro's sense of impending danger slowly ratcheted down into visible discomfort. He did the best he could. "Who is this Takemura? I am not called Takemura."

"You're not Takemura Goro, the legendary Arasaka guardian?"

V choked on a laugh. "Legendary?" When Takemura looked like he might actually acquiesce to his three biggest fans, she started searching for a place to sit and mark time. His petrified face searched over both shoulders for the source of her voice. When their gaze finally met, his wide eyes silently pleaded for help. "Don't look at _me_ – _you're_ the gonk who was so eager to tag along, now take your medicine." She stared back indifferently for a few seconds longer than necessary before obliging with a sigh: "Look, Hideshi, I know you love your fans, but Totentanz isn't open all night..."

The three Okadas froze, suddenly deflated. "Hideshi?"

V rose to her feet. "You kids are too young to remember this, but before his fall from grace, Hideshi here used to host his own late-night talk show." She stepped into their semicircle, fitting an arm around his shoulders. "Don't let his attitude fool ya, this fred's the grandfather of foolish capers. Remember _Hideshi's Castle_? With the obstacle courses?"

The disappointed giants all stared at Takemura. It was too late to act tough now that their childlike wonder had been unleashed. Now they just wanted to go home. Courageous Okada reached into the trunk of the nearby sports coupe. V wondered how all three of them managed to fit inside such a tiny cockpit. 

"Our mom said you'd know what to do with this." He handed over a hard enclosure no bigger than a cigarette case.

V smiled, accepting the package. "Thanks, Okadas."

"Bye, Takemura-sensei."

When they re-entered the vehicle, Goro seemed shaken by his experience. He spoke solemnly, staring out the window, trying to resolve something disturbing he'd noticed about the young men. "I have never met a Dokyun name before tonight, let alone three."

"A Dokyun name?"

"A given name of particular stupidity. The tallest boy is called _くれしいうつ_. Parents often choose these in the modern era instead of traditional names. Such a name is pronounced _Courageous_ – the Kana sounds are _Kure_ , _Shii_ and _Utsu_. These also impart the name's second reading in Japanese; often worse than the English meaning. One possible way to interpret Okada Kureshiiutsu's given name is 'forceful fist-punch at sunset'. An... unfortunate moniker."

V laughed. "So, what does 'Goro' mean?"

"This given name has several meanings. In my own case, it simply means 'son'."

She looked at him thoughtfully, turning over the car's ignition. "Is there a Japanese reading of 'V'?"

"The 'Vi' sound does not exist in Japan. When I write your name or refer to you, I use the kanji 'Bi'."

"What's 'Bi'?"

He hesitated. "It..." Takemura sighed deeply, almost begrudgingly. "Give me your hand." He shifted in his seat to face her, awaiting her offering in his upturned palm.

Using the tip of his index finger, Goro began by drawing two tiny apostrophes side-by-side in the soft valley of her palm, at the very edge of her metacarpals. He underscored them with a long horizontal line.

"The Bi-kanji looks very close to the kanji for 'truth', 'performance', 'clothing'."

From the centre of the horizontal line, he traced a short vertical line, a stem growing down toward the centre of her palm. V's heart hammered hard enough for her to notice the drumming pulse in her neck. The dull, all-over ache she always felt around Goro focused into a spike of rolling heat. Her thoughts were hers and not-hers, a collage of her desires and the competing impulses of Johnny's that she only barely recognised as foreign. But Goro's gliding finger focused her attention. Demanded it.

He continued, slicing through the stem with three horizontal bars, the first one slightly shorter than its two brothers. His voice became a hoarse whisper while he struggled to control his breathing. Struggled not to move the way instinct insisted.

"It seemed all the more fitting after you spoke of your search for the truth of your self, under your costume."

Finally, he pressed two curves into her palm, like legs that reached out in opposite directions from the bottom of the stem.

美

"Bi," he repeated, still grasping her outstretched palm. His eyes moved to her face and he spoke very carefully, with unusual tenderness, like he'd just awakened from a deep sleep. "The meaning of this kanji is 'beauty'. When I speak your name, this is what I hear myself say." He half-believed his hands would pass straight through her – neither of them were quite human, after all. They were two ghosts, sitting side-by-side in an idling wreck, at the northern edge of a wasteland. Something about this felt reassuring.

He released her and reached for her face instead, to cup her cheek and feel her hairline and connect, in some way, to touch, to make them real. "V."

For hours afterward, if Goro focused hard enough, he could still feel the shock of the kiss, and its almost fierce tenderness. Kissing V felt like biting down on metal or grabbing an electrified fence, and what started out slowly became something more than a kiss – it was more obliging and coloured by sensuality than any definition of kisses he had made for himself in the past.

Gradually, they broke apart again, and V sighed, collecting her scattershot thoughts behind closed eyes. He was still there when she opened them, looking back at her with a tranquil face. Her hand sought his again and held it, and she smiled tenderly, remembering tonight's unfinished task.

She whispered, peering down at their braided fingers. "Can you dance?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did my best, but I don't speak Japanese, so please forgive me for my inevitable mistakes. If it's simply too annoying to bear, please share your favourite kirakira/DQN names to sub in, especially if they sound better suited to a pet dog than a human baby.
> 
> _Only oldheads know "Hideshi's" Castle._


	8. Codename Dan Dan

I keep searching the streets for that  
blood-wine battleship she drives  
with a weak battery, and the doors  
hanging from broken hinges.

I drive around the streets  
an inch away from weeping,  
ashamed of my sentimentality and  
possible love.

a confused old man driving in the rain  
wondering where the good luck  
went.  
—Charles Bukowski, _Love is a Dog from Hell_

"Can you dance?"

Takemura seemed genuinely stunned by the question. "Dance... is not what one might call it. Although I enjoy many genres of music, if you truly mean to ask me to dance, you will be disappointed." He relented after a moment, like they both knew he would. "But... I will watch you dance."

Even in the relative calm, V felt a higher awareness of her contradicting selves. She trembled with the duelling sensations of anticipation and anxiety, emotions that were hers and not-hers. Her body was slowly losing the ability to distinguish between its own genuine responses and the engram's aberrant impulses which cross-hatched against them. The effect was especially pronounced under stress, where her skin burned with the same dread and hostility that Silverhand concealed under his cavalier disposition. Without even a peep from Johnny, being kissed by Takemura still felt like turning inside-out.

During the drive to Totentanz, he closed both his hands around one of hers, reciprocating the comfort they shared on their rooftop stakeout. He couldn't possibly know of the struggle inside her body, but decades spent standing behind Saburo Arasaka made Takemura sensitive to the way even microscopic pressure-changes of tension could fill an entire room. The mood lifted when they left the car, as if the act of opening a door could normalise the pressure and therefore release the tension inside her.

"Dealt with Maelstrom before?" V adopted the same matter-of-fact demeanour that Takemura first encountered in Tom's Diner, while they prepared the groundwork for bringing Yorinobu to justice.

He matched her tone, approaching their task with his own calculating professionalism. "Ah. I believe so," he began tentatively, calling up a checklist in his HUD interface:

> **PEOPLE TO KILL**
> 
> Animals "Rhino", "Sasquatch" et al., €$ 3 500+  
>  Performance-enhancing drug ring. Ripperdoc or gym distribution chain under investigation
> 
> Maelstrom Randall Simon a.k.a. "Ruice" and accomplice "Codename Dan Dan", €$ 2 900 ea.  
>  Thieves of cyberware and military-grade weapons. Possible Militech spies
> 
> "Prophet Garry", legal name unknown, €$ 400  
>  Peddling of false information. Cult association?
> 
> **SURVEILLANCE ONLY**
> 
> NCPD Detective "Word"  
>  Acquaintance of 美 ? Untrustworthy
> 
> Lowlife alliance in abandoned apartments  
>  Disturbing the peace. Lurking
> 
> No-onigiri food vendor with shovel-face  
>  Corruption

"I am pursuing bounties on the Maelstromers known as 'Ruice', and codename Dan Dan." Takemura stood tall, crossing his arms. He was pleased. Tonight they would infiltrate a Maelstrom nest, and tomorrow he would collect his bounty.

V narrowed her eyes, retrieving Wakako's offering from the car. "Codename Dan Dan?" The name sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it.

"The 'little brother' Maelstromer. An accomplice of Ruice," Takemura explained.

"Oh!" A trickle of laughter. "Dum Dum!" She'd almost forgotten about _Codename Dan Dan_ and his big brother _Ruice_. Besides existing as a cautionary tale to Maelstrom's would-be dissenters, they no longer represented anything to anyone. Perhaps that's the way most people thought of Jackie, too. Their memory was the nostalgic reminder of a past life which barely resembled V's present circumstances. "Yeah... those guys would've bought you a nice new pair of shoes or somethin' —" (Takemura frowned. He wore perfectly serviceable shoes.) "—but they're dead and our contact is Brick."

Takemura's eyes widened, his face twisting in horror. "What!" Momentary outrage yielded to exasperated dismay. These bounties' premature deaths were only the latest setbacks in a never-ending week of small disasters. "Who is Brick?" He didn't even want to know. What newfangled burden would this knowledge bring?

"Somebody you're not allowed to kill," she crooned, leading her partner toward the abandoned warehouse.

* * *

Inside Totentanz, they nosed their way through a labyrinth of dim, disused chambers which shook under the dance club's thundering rhythm. There was a confusion of scents in the musty concrete sub-basement. Where the All Foods plant stank of meat and blood and shit, the dank humidity of Totentanz carried the yeasty smell of human sweat and something thick and herbaceous which Johnny recognised as Blue Shock, the cough syrup-like stimulant.

An unmoving man blocked the way into the inmost room. Like most Maelstromers, the entire upper half of what used to be his face had been raggedly carved away, cupid's bow to hairline. A clutch of glowing arachnid eyes took its place: eight inhuman LEDs in a nest of chrome and wires. They fixed the trespassers with the soulless vacancy of a wall socket.

"Private party," the guard intoned when V tried to pass, shoving her backward into Takemura.

She wondered how Maelstrom kept producing more and more of these no-face zombies. The gang was a hydra. Shoot two dozen heads off in one factory, and sixty-four more wept out of the ruined cement walls in another factory across town. "Got something for Brick."

A voice called from inside the room to let her through. She shoved past the guard and approached the cluster of deliberating soldiers, placing the case in the centre of the long table they surrounded. "Special delivery." V counted eight Maelstrom lieutenants, plus some outsiders from factions she didn't recognise, and Brick, who stood directly opposite her. A few curious faces inspected the new object on the table between them. Several examined her and Takemura with the same piercing interest. She scanned the horizon of eyes as Brick pulled the case across the table and flipped open the clamps holding its two halves together. He gathered the shard from its support and held it up to the light.

V took the floor. "Same shard as it was yesterday, only now it's got a little pilot fish along for the ride."

Takemura observed her effortless command over the Brick-headed man and his cronies. It was V's turn to lead now, as Takemura had done with Oda. Only, unlike Oda, which he'd badly bungled, the King Maelstromer seemed almost happy to see her, as if they were friends. He envied the way she moved between worlds. Confidence and vulnerability were simple matters for V, easily interchangeable. He envied the strength it must have taken to shield against cynicism and paranoia, in spite of the machinations threatening to flatten them both. Takemura could safely exist as a contradiction with her, appearing both weak and strong simultaneously, knowing her steadfast tolerance would remain unchanged. V had planted her heels and grappled with him on her own terms. Though, given the state of her car, perhaps this strength was a consequence of stubbornness alone.

She continued explaining the tech to the rowdy room of monsters. This particular stroke of magic had most likely taken the three Okada boys a matter of minutes, huddled around their family dataterm with nothing but a shard burner and an open-source hex editor. "My netrunner team adapted the program from some pirated NetWatch soft. Simple and elegant. Just a couple lines of code." She paused, taking the time to ensure she had the attention of each pair of eyes around the table. "This shard was very, very difficult to crack—" probably, "— and something like this will only work once, so do not fuck it up."

Satisfied, Brick closed the case and addressed the room. "As far as Militech knows, their runner's planting this in one of our access points tonight, then he's gonna run like hell. But Militech don't know that their friend Aleksej is really my friend Budimir."

Takemura softened. Budimir – _Buddha_. He took it as a good omen.

Brick continued: "Shard's supposed to poke around in our servers and transmit whatever it finds to plainclothes Corpo agents passing by All Foods a couple times a day. And it's still gonna do that."

"You're giving them real data?"

"Real data from our real servers."

V interjected. "If they think you're feeding them scop, they'll just burn the chip and dream up something else. Somethin' you can't use against them. You want Militech? This is the only way."

"We gotta warn our guys."

Brick dismissed the outrage. "Sit down, Skin. You're not doing shit."

"I got crews out there, Brick. A dozen—"

A low rumble of dissent. Brick ignored it. "Cut the static on this, Skin. We gotta do this real smooth."

"Piggybacking on this shard's a file that'll siphon Militech's own data, bit by bit," V piped up again, unfazed. "The malware activates when they bring home the first batch. Then, when those plainclothes Corpos come back to leech more – whatever's on your server, your Activist's Cookbook recipes and accounting spreadsheets – they'll also unknowingly upload the siphoned Militech data. Keeps going back and forth like that as the Corporats come and go. Since it happens slowly, there's no unusual spike in network traffic to get you pinched. It all gets camouflaged as routine data dumps every time the undercover rodents check into their nest. Nothing that anybody's gonna notice if they're not specifically looking for it. Killswitch is: you pull the shard. When you pull it, you can't grab anything else from them, and they can't grab any more of Dum Dum's old poetry."

She shrugged and moved to leave. "Whatever you do with their data's none of my business." Even the stone-faced Takemura looked impressed.

* * *

The music peaked when they reached the central hall, its higher frequencies no longer filtered through several floors. Takemura didn't dislike the rattling percussion, but its unpredictable tempo placed it on-par with jazz fusion in terms of danceability. This fact did not deter the thrumming crowd that he and V pushed through.

Takemura was not interested in dancing. Even folded within this sea of anonymous faces, he found it difficult to shed the notion of being an alien intruder. When V reached across the gap between them and touched his body for the first time, his arms and hands broadcast another interest. A mouth grazing an ear. One knee knocking into another. A hand squeezing a forearm. Both of them reaching and pulling and holding. An onlooker might have mistaken their swaying clasp as the congenial touch shared between two long-time friends, rather than what it was: a seduction exchanged by two strangers, hidden in plain sight. The venue's human camouflage provided a proving ground for his increasingly permissible wants, and Takemura felt himself swept away by the energy he had been bracing against since their arrival.

He pulled V against him roughly, refusing to let any space between them grow. She reciprocated by hooking her arms around his neck, enjoying their invisible proximity, her soft edges pressed against his immovable walls. With her back to the room, she hoped she herself might become invisible for awhile, shrouding them both in shadows. Takemura's sharp silver optics sought her attention. Instead of exacerbating the dissonance between her two selves, the mystery behind his eyes focused her. She lifted her chin, placing a docile kiss at the corner of his lips, her breasts against his chest. She wanted many things from this man, and from this moment. It was impossible to stay guarded under his disarming gaze.

"Can't get close enough to you," she managed to articulate, the motion of her lips tickling the soft bowl of his ear. "Need to touch you all the time."

V had already chosen to place her trust in him. Takemura wanted to reassure her of his own trust in her. His response came clearly, spoken against V's mouth: "Then, touch me."

* * *

They pushed through the warehouse again, down a staircase, using the graffiti they passed as waypoints. A wide central hallway divided the ground floor into two symmetrical halves. Groups of young adults leaned against the walls or sat on the floor. On the far side, a metal door led outside. Takemura threw his weight into the crashbar and stepped out of the recessed doorway, finally, into the cool late-night air and the alley where V had parked the car.

Startled by the clatter of the door, a crowd of spindly-bodied Maelstromers scattered frantically, whooping and shouting as they dispersed into the street. As V and Takemura approached to examine the rubble they left behind, her sedate little smile became a stunned black O in an instant. Even Johnny materialised to admire the spectacular mess: "Holy shit."

A heap of exploded plastic, snapped lengths of low-quality steel, and what remained of a four-cylinder Thorton engine lay in a pool of its own motor oil, surrounded by a halo of broken glass and corkscrews of sheet metal that had been torn away from the frame like the rind of a peeled fruit.

"W-wow," V rasped, barely able to hear her own voice. She recognised all the base components – axles, steering wheel, gutted upholstery – but couldn't immediately make the conceptual leap between this unoriginal art installation and her car. During the millisecond of higher-brain processing that occurred between observing the mass and making sense of it, V's initial reflections were half-baked reveries like _Is this the wrong alley?_ or _Did the Galena get towed?_

Takemura nodded slightly, like his own sense of surprise agreed with hers. His gaze traded off between V's dumbfounded face and the husk of bare metal in front of them. A long moment passed before anyone said anything. Contemplating the debris, he smoothed his beard with his hand repeatedly, working it into a soft point at the chin.

"V, I am sorry."

V nodded in acknowledgment and turned around to leave the alley. "Fucking Maelstrom." She blew out a heavy sigh, pivoting to address Takemura as he followed her onto the sidewalk. "Maybe they were trying to fix it up for us."

His voice smiled, even if his face did not. "You don't agree that this is an improvement?"

She laughed. "You just witnessed the most dignified death that mean old bastard could've hoped for. No air conditioning, stalling on the highway, barely swung the fuel efficiency of a lawn mower. Don't wanna speak ill of the dead, but we both know it was just a matter of time before the car gained sentience and tried to kill us by driving into the bucket of a cement mixer." After a beat, she slipped her hand into his, like a gun into a holster. "You okay going about two clicks on foot? If we hurry, we won't be too late for your surprise."

* * *

Takemura and V walked side-by-side over the bridge that crossed the shimmering Del Coronado Bay, hurrying past neon-lit storefronts with security gates pulled over their facades, across short clearings of darkness, through overpass tubes and over deserted pedestrian malls.

They bumped through the scaffolding tunnels of new construction, meandering past phalanxes of SCSMs and towers of chattering LCD screens. The pair crossed ten, maybe twelve strangers in all: young women in bright clothes running for the signal to cross the road, old men standing smoking in doorways, groups of shouting teenagers.

"Almost there." V led the way down a narrow road and through a grimy tunnel covered entirely in tiny turquoise-green tiles. Feeling fearless, Takemura drew an arm around his partner's shoulders and pulled her close, their bodies touching in a less accidental way than the first half of their walk. As they closed in on the arch of red lampshades that heralded their destination, V let herself lean against him. "What were you thinking about in the club, that made you look at me like that?" It felt safe to ask even as they slowed to a stop, in front of what appeared to be the smallest, greasiest food vending booth in the longest, filthiest alley in all of Japantown. The cook was preparing to close. They were just in time.

Takemura was too hungry to properly savour his meal. This was worth those lost bounties, the Dokyun boys, the hearing loss, the ruined car. He stared at V, who sat beside him eating just as hastily. These were the last two helpings of the night. This beautiful grinning maniac, who glanced back at him from above the lip of her bowl, had spent two weeks exploring every public space over the dozens of city blocks between here and The Glen in her search for authentic-tasting tonkotsu ramen. It was his reward, she said, for not falling casualty to Night City.

He hadn't answered her question yet, but the possibilities tumbled forward in his mind while he watched her, feeling full of to the point of bursting with expectation and eagerness. Hours ago they were performing for three fat boys in silk bomber jackets. Moments ago they were performing for one another. Takemura didn't intend for it to end. Didn't wish to veer off this course. He wanted to feel V's grip again. He wanted to wrap her around him, to hide her in his chest, pulled into some quiet place where they could be invisible to the world.

"I hope I did not seem too unusual in the Maelstrom club."

Her shoulders twisted to face him and she smiled, listening, resting her chin on a fist.

"When I looked at you, I thought—" The voice Goro's chest made was timid and soft. It sounded nothing like him. "—I thought, for a moment, that I might run away with you."


	9. Shimatta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **CW** : Graphic violence, sexuality.
> 
> A nightmare, some poetry, flashbacks, nudity, a brief history of mega-arcologies, municipal politics and urban intensification policies in Night City after the AHQ Disaster, the Oda boss fight, two completely independent descriptions of systemic oppression, unreliable narrators, a lot of old foreshadowing getting fulfilled, and, hopefully, a reasonably clear timeline of events.

Leap backward out of the forgotten tomb that could never hold you. The taste of oil-wet mud is pulled from your mouth. You land flat-footed on the asphalt, time-melted body suddenly whole again. The silver arm sutures itself back into your nerves. Your clothes are suddenly clean and dry. You walk backward, through the glass window, into the un-exploding tower, where chunks of rebar braid themselves into the un-shattering walls. Bullet casings rise from the ground and peacefully slide back into your gun. After three lunges on unsteady feet, you're sucked into a body-shaped dent in the sand of a room-sized zen garden. There's barely time to observe your destruction of its perfecly flat surface before inverted gravity carries your falling body up a twelve-foot drop. You pass through a wooden baluster, which reconstitutes itself around your thighs as you continue to advance backwards. Your gun pulls bullets out of the fallen soldiers around you, and you watch their bodies jerk back to life. When you reach the roof, you keep falling up, higher and higher, past the helicopter, until Arasaka Tower is a distant point of light under your feet. Fall until the horizon bends into an arc. Fall until there's nothing left but an airless, suffocating void.

* * *

V woke up gasping and choking, startled out of the nightmare by a Relic malfunction. Her arms and legs lay heavy and weak from straining against the paralysis of sleep. In her uncertain fettle, she half-dreamed someone else laying in bed near her, just out of reach, as if only a second ago she felt his deep voice buzzing against her neck. But he was not here, and she was not there. She wanted to say his name aloud but could only lay there comfortless in the dark. She felt Johnny with her, sensed his share of their panic. "It's okay," she whimpered, to comfort them both. "It's okay. It's okay."

Her phone vibrated on the overhead shelf.

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  4:39AM  
>  Morning of Dashi,  
>  Two early birds get the worm.  
>  Dobiu Oh Ar Em.

> **V**  
>  4:43AM  
>  sSeriously? What time is it

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  4:45AM  
>  Is your existence so starved of joy and stillness that you cannot even recognise haiku?

> **V**  
>  4:53AM  
>  I know it's haiku...  
>    
>  4:54AM  
>  what is a "Dobiu Oh Ar Em"?

> **TAKEMURA**  
>  4:56AM  
>  W, O, R, M.

> **V**  
>  4:58AM  
>  Go back to sleep please Takemura.

* * *

Takemura filled the sink basin with cold water and set about grooming his beard. The motions were rote after years of repetition, but he carried them out deliberately, with a slow and careful hand. These mindful, quiet tasks helped him to focus. In mindful quiet he could visualise the parade which he and V would infiltrate tonight. He could see himself dissimulated within the crowd while V operated covertly all around him, influencing the timing and convergence of the event's many variables.

Goro was fastidious about his physical appearance. Dressing and grooming were subtle acts of subterfuge which afforded some control over the way others perceived him. Takemura knew what the world saw when he occupied space within it, and was willing to play along, if it served his purposes. Was Hanako more likely to trust a dirty and bedraggled spectre of Takemura Goro, or the guardian whom her father hand-picked among one hundred others? He had embodied that impassive persona for so long that it felt more comfortable to occupy than his own skin. It was no accident, after all, that this guardian's strengths overlapped the areas where Takemura felt weakest.

After fixing his long cascade of greying hair into its usual knot, Takemura studied himself in the cracked mirror. He turned his head left and right, watching soft round shadows travel over his eye sockets and under his nose. The floodlamps he jury-rigged to light his hideaway bathed the room in the same stark clinical whiteness as an operating theatre. It washed away the life under his skin, making him look old and sickly. He wished for better light, a comfortable bed, hot water. Suddenly he remembered V, her eyes transformed with playful desire, pulling him by the forearms toward the jet of her shower. So different from the half-dead creature he pulled out of a landfill. So different from practically everyone. Takemura's skin flushed in burning waves. The realisation of what they had done would only hit him when they woke up the next morning, tangled in her bedsheets.

He remembered the heavy sleepwalk to her apartment, well after midnight, the dead weight of his implants pulling him closer and closer to the ground:

"Are you ready for Sunday?" She peeked out from beneath the yoke of his arm that hung around her shoulders.

"Yes. Our mission is a simple one, and we have accounted for all practical considerations. As for moral concerns, we are armed with the greatest weapon of all: the truth."

V nodded, looking at the sidewalk underfoot. "What if the truth isn't enough?"

Takemura considered this briefly, but his response didn't change. "Yorinobu has begun manipulating events in his own favour. He may yet succeed in stopping us, but his fear may also bring about his downfall. Unlike Yorinobu, we do not fear failure. The truth will vindicate us, even if we are killed."

"Assuming the truth exists at all."

"We are bound by our principles to fulfill this duty, V."

"Not havin' second thoughts. Just thinking out loud." The monstrous Megabuilding H10 hovered over them. It was bigger than Takemura imagined, its thousands of backlit eyes watching their approach with the disinterest of a supreme being. "Is truth ever good or bad? Or just something outside of human morality? Maybe the internal politics of Arasaka are more complicated than we can imagine."

"I don't believe we possess imperfect knowledge in this case. V... do not let fear undermine your inner strength. I have limitless faith in your abilities."

With all the conviction his heart could hold, Takemura believed that if Hanako only knew the truth about V and the tragic events at Konpeki Plaza, she would help them act against her brother. There could be no other outcome. Everything was a theatrical fable on good versus evil with him. Black or white. For Takemura, the pursuit of virtue was the central task of his life, and a necessary condition to remaining alive. Very little wrongdoing was allowed to pass him by without a swift act of what history would hopefully acknowledge as justice. It was how he came to accept his role within Arasaka, and how he would come to understand V.

But Takemura was also stubborn, single-minded, and intransigent. On some level, he knew that Arasaka traded in violence and death. But remembering what he once chose to forget presupposed that one day, he would have to interrogate everything he knew about himself, too. For Takemura, such questions were admissions of guilt. A confession that his own life hadn't been so virtuous after all, in spite of his intentions. Like the cook he was so quick to accuse, Takemura's wages, too, were paid through the suffering of his employer's victims.

* * *

Takemura had never seen the inside of a Megabuilding before. The atrium of H10 was a strange twilight compared to the kinetic heartbeat of Totentanz and their carefree meandering afterward. Service points and commercial space on the lower floors hugged the distant walls alongside mountains of trash. Building occupants gathered in small groups, sitting on massive concrete handrails or just in circles on the floor, ignoring the hostile architecture designed to keep them out of sight.

He wondered how she could live this way. How so many in Night City could live this way. Even the rich, for the most part, occupied high-density buildings, although the similarities between brutalist mega-arcologies and luxury high-rise apartments began and ended there. Megabuildings were engineered to drive their tenants insane. The nauseous yellow-green lighting. Doors slamming shut in the hallway. Shouts and laughter echoing along the central chimney from above and below. An endless rotation of new neighbours. The buildings' lack of regular maintenance, lax regulations and total absence of oversight. All designed to remove the impression of safety and privacy.

Megabuildings were part of a major urban reorganisation in Night City after the AHQ disaster – the so-called Night City Holocaust. They were initially conceived as the solution to a manufactured crisis. Like all manufactured crises, this one began with a lie designed to erase unwanted elements from public view. Soon, all policy settings and electoral promises revolved around this lie. The city's media outlets ignored massive civil unrest, preferring to promote the benefits of population density and distorting the issue into a matter of individual social responsibility. Naturally, only the poor were expected to decamp into ever-smaller neighbourhoods. The vacant space they left behind was re-zoned on behalf of property developers and speculators to lure wealthy citizens back into City Center.

Fifty years later, the sinister intensification of 2020 was held as conventional urban planning. Contemporary opportunitsts now sought to overcorrect for every accidental kindness the Megabuildings produced. The tiny dwellings were considered "oversized". Legislators attempted to ban vendors from establishing themselves on lower floors, and threatened tenants' right to "free" city services like sanitation and running water. The issue was no longer poverty. It was the poor being allowed to breathe fresh air and having access to sunlight. The poor walking down streets lined with trees. Sleeping through the night. Having leisure time and access to public amenities. That the poor existed at all was an affront. Megabuildings could hide them, but hiding was no longer enough. By continuing to extort basic human dignity from the rich, the poor were now guilty of stealing their joie-de-vivre.

Inside the cage of H10's one functioning elevator, V interrupted Takemura's silent introspection. "What's next for you? After you get what you want?"

"After Hanako-sama learns the truth? Or when we meet our fate on the path to Yorinobu?"

Something about those questions pulled tremors inside her body. It sounded like he intended to either avenge Saburo or die trying. "The second one."

"We cannot know what the future will hold, but if the outcome of our actions is as just as our intentions, perhaps we will both return to the lives we once had."

A long silence fell in the rising vestibule. V tried to seem neutral and disaffected, but couldn't keep the hurt completely out of her voice. Barely an hour ago, he talked about running away. "Did you ever want to leave Arasaka? Was there a time in your life where that was even briefly true?"

"I do not waste energy focusing on what I cannot change."

It did not surprise V to learn that Takemura's vision of an ideal future included returning to his old life, or whatever was left of it after Saburo's demise. He would not be the first hostage who dreamt of returning to his captors, nor the first gonk to say something he didn't mean to someone he wanted to fuck. What made V uneasy was intuiting that some part of him just couldn't help it. If the possibility presented itself, he might return to Arasaka even if he didn't want to.

Tomorrow, she would notice a new distance between them. A boundary to separate what they shared in the privacy of her bed from a new secrecy that Takemura required in daylight. He wouldn't insult her by calling attention to it, but it would exist all the same. She could only surmise that he now considered her a weakness of his. To be discovered with her, to be seen enjoying himself, would remove his small advantage over the nearly-omnipotent Corporation. It was therefore natural to assume this distance was in service of whichever next task his agenda deemed a priority.

Attempting to interpret his motives only confounded her instincts. Takemura wouldn't intentionally deceive her, but she was beginning to understand how tragically he had misplaced his faith. Could she trust Arasaka with her life? With Johnny's? Would he pause to consider what was right for V, if she became unfit to make her own decisions? Could he even fathom that her needs might be different from his?

As Takemura's moods moved between farther and farther extremes, he became harder to predict. V sometimes had the impression of babysitting a lovelorn teenager. If she expressed her concerns, would she receive a moody and evasive response, or a thoughtful and kind one? His volatility had begun to make their association a liability. Johnny was right. Now that she knew, she felt stupid not to have seen it sooner. Her own gullibility embarrassed her. What little good sense still existed between she and Johnny demanded that they forget Takemura and abandon the possibility of consigning herself to Arasaka as a means of extracting the Relic. For all his goodness and potential for affection, for all the ways he'd been wronged and wronged someone in kind, for all the wounds that hobbled him, it was clear by now that Takemura could not do right by anyone, not even himself.

Takemura's new reality was pushing him closer and closer to confronting the truths he couldn't bear to face. It was the knowledge that had forced him into a lifetime of denial, and the crucial secret of Arasaka's success. Not its capacity to sell or perpetrate violence, but a zealous belief among all its soldiers that the corporation itself comprised an essential part of their well-being. Anyone fortunate enough to wear the logo believed it: without Arasaka, they would die. By isolating its young recruits, emptying their lives of safety and trust, and convincing them that their present and future oppression was both insignificant and inevitable, the Corporation systematised its psychological imprint. In so doing, Arasaka fashioned itself into an even more malevolent system than the cancer of Megabuildings.

Only, Takemura had escaped. And he was alive.

Never one to deny himself a righteous airing of grievances, Johnny awaited his two favourite exiles on the couch that wrapped around the far corner of V's apartment. When the door slid open, he spread his arms wide, as if to greet the two late arrivals with a hug. "Havin' a good night, you Corpo fuck? Just another evening of slummin' it with the natives, waitin' on 'Saka to show up and collect their missing furniture, huh?"

V levelled her eyes on Johnny. "Here to brag?"

"Me? Brag?" Johnny scoffed. "Have a little faith. Think of me as your boxing coach." His voice curled with the gruff imitation of an old bastard he once knew. "You're takin' a beating out there, champ, but this meathead's blind spot is gettin' bigger by the second. Keep biding your time, kid – hold out long enough, and you'll put him down with one good uppercut."

"Already know where you're going with this and the answer's no."

"If he's crawling back to his corporate masters anyway, what's the harm in sending him off with a nice parting gift? 'So long, thanks for the memories, and go fuck yourself.'"

"We're not gonna use him to infiltrate Arasaka, Johnny."

"Not even one little incursion for old times' sake, huh? C'mon, if Wakako's kids can haze Militech on a school night, why not do Arasaka next?"

"Not through Takemura."

"One thing I love about you, V. You're never one to let the wisdom of experience get in the way of you earning your hard knocks. Won't even say 'told you so' when you wake up alone tomorrow morning 'cause he's back at HQ catchin' bullets for Yori."

* * *

Takemura paced across his empty hovel, waiting for V to signal that she was in position. He fought off ever-more-invasive thoughts about their bodies, about the way touching her felt like a fulfilled promise. About the possibility of that promise being called "love".

He remembered how gently V untied his hair, holding it loosely like any firmness at all might hurt him. She combed her fingers through it and he closed his eyes. He remembered smiling at the feeling of her hand as it travelled across his face, down his forehead and hairline, brushing her fingertips over both eyelids. She followed the bridge of his nose and traced the symmetrical silver scar that bisected it.

He remembered letting his head fall backwards. Her thumb hooked inside the humid space between his two lips. They twitched around her knuckle. He held his breath. Goosebumps ripped down his biological parts, a frisson of static itched over his patchwork of synthetic ones.

"Glad you're here," she would whisper, almost sadly.

His face relaxed into tenderness, appreciative of their brief sensuousness. "I'm glad I am here, too."

He remembered being led half-naked under the spout of her shower. She clutched his forearms and walked backwards into the vestibule, grinning, until her body bumped the far wall. The falling water between them washed the sound of their soft laughter away. He followed, mesmerised, but couldn't keep his eyes open under the splashing heat. Without the benefit of vision, Takemura had no alternative but to wrest V's soaked underwear from her body, sightlessly tearing apart the seams. His own briefs avoided the same treatment but were eventually sacrificed all the same, lost to V's apartment forever after he whipped away the wet fistful as forcefully as possible.

Somebody's weight shifted them away from the cascade – his, hers, hard to tell who led this dance – and a bar of soap passed from her hands into his. She presented him with her back first. He spread a lather over the field of bare skin and the red-mottled shoulders under her hair, which the falling water continuously divided into thick wet locks. He hooked his chin over her shoulder, passed the soap back, and covered her two dark nipples with his cupping hands, murmuring her name into the topology of tendons and ligaments of her neck. "Bi," again and again, "Bi." V leaned against his chest, and both her soapy hands groped blindly behind her to clean him in kind.

He remembered falling into bed, fighting against the heaviness of fatigue and the aching protests of his exhausted body. He could move, but it felt like driving a car – pedals pressing uselessly into the floor, wheels already turning as far as the axle would allow. His limit had been reached. His unresponsive sex only drove the point home.

She must have felt him hesitate. "Goro?" When she spoke, their eyes locked accidentally, long enough for V to notice a brief flash of fear before he broke their gaze. He dropped his brow against the crook of her neck and squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to clear his head. This could not happen now. Not now.

His body's refusal to perform cast an ironic spotlight on the potential hopelessness of their shared desire. Takemura heaved out a deep and plaintive sigh. Disbelief turned into dissociation. Peering down between them, he hoped he might catch a glimpse of his body as it disappeared, falling forward through the bed, through the floor, through the earth. His last conscious memories were on the futility of pressing their shower-humid skin together, and of their lips purling together lazily until they both slowed and lapsed into sleep.

It felt like no time passed at all, but when he opened his eyes again it was morning. The horizon behind Biotechnica's endless greenhouses appeared in a wash of pale blue, and the traffic far below began its dawn chorus. A dull ache echoed through his shoulders and hips. His face was buried in someone's hair, a spine curved against his chest, a woman's thighs held his knee between them. Eye contact with himself reflected in a black screen across the room. Naked. The fitted sheet was pulled off the two bottom corners of this mattress, but someone managed to shield them both under most of the blankets. He didn't recognise this room, this bed, didn't remember falling asleep or waking up shivering to pull the bedsheets across them, but he knew the smell of this woman, the taste of her skin on his lips. It was her. Her. Takemura lay quiet and motionless, measuring the space between her breaths and processing his recollection of last night.

* * *

Only 72 hours later, he waited for her signal alone in his hovel, fighting against the sudden spike of fear that slowly evolved into regret then shame. He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for self-hatred instead. At least self-hatred could be directed entirely inward, to save V from the disaster of himself. It would have been familiar and therefore comforting – he wanted self-hatred, like being twenty years old again and learning that the difference between torture and sex was force of impact.

As he and V grew closer, his fear had been allowed to grow, too, slowly putting on muscle, changing the way he thought and behaved.

In some convoluted way, inviting V into his life meant also shouldering every crime and injustice and madness that Arasaka ever produced and calling it his own. To be loved by V meant being seen by her, and therefore understood as the evil man he was. Could she love a monster? What would happen if he let himself return her love? 

What if he couldn't forgive himself? What if he couldn't make amends?

Perhaps love could be killed, then, the way a human can be killed. By starvation. By injury. There was no guide, no small grey man standing by to show him where to plunge the knife. It would have to be into his own heart this time, to finally rid himself of it.

A call from V disrupted this accounting of all the rotten teeth in his metaphorical skull. She was in position. He rose, stretched, and left the squat. The Dashi Parade would soon begin. It was time to go to work.

* * *

They moved separately across the parade grounds, pursuing their individual tasks. The voice in Takemura's earpiece interrupted the comfortable silence that had settled over the phone-line. "It's not too late."

Instinctively, Takemura scanned the glass facade of a nearby high-rise, searching for V. Was she addressing him? "V? What do you mean?"

"To run away together."

Takemura did not respond. He tried to think. To calculate. This broke his earlier vow, to preclude any feelings from interfering with his obligations to Arasaka. He never had to choose before. Was it a choice? He adjusted his jacket, seeming to instinctually search for armour. He shouldn't have to choose, he repeated to himself. His usual composure was gone. It was so easy to make fatal mistakes when trapped against an invisible wall.

She continued. Her voice sounded hollow over their open line. "Do you remember what we said on the roof? How the industrial park looked like any other pathetic slab of concrete in Night City?" 

He snapped, already losing patience. "Enough!" When V offered nothing in return, Takemura softened. He felt guilty. "These conversations will not help us to further our goals. Do not be foolish. They are only fantasies." He did not wish to confront the artifice of his self-made lies tonight. He wanted to concentrate on completing their task. V didn't answer. She didn't say anything at all.

V crept noiselessly into a large chamber at the end of the hall. It appeared to be the main control room. She stopped to catch her breath, wipe her eyes, and look around. A wall of windows on her left. Through it she could see the whole black silhouette of the Arasaka float swaying across slices of neon light. The float seemed to jerk upward and sideways, battered about by hot wind. Takemura would jump soon. The snipers were neutralised. All that remained was for the float to pass under his perch.

She spotted the Netrunner next, sitting motionless in half-lotus, jacked into a mantle of server and CPU clusters on a huge rolling cart. V held her breath and approached from behind, wrapping her fingers around the twist of cable that hung like a biting snake from the base of the 'runner's skull. The room remained silent and motionless. V grasped the plug and pulled hard until the body went limp and fell backwards.

Takemura observed the approaching parade floats, counting down to each remaining stage of his mission. He pictured himself and V moving simultaneously, both of them unseen and unknown, propelled toward their goal by an unstoppable momentum. He imagined the conversation with Hanako that awaited, a matter of minutes from now. He swallowed trepidation and waited for V's signal.

V explored the huge space. She guessed it was a gutted penthouse being remade. Four wide pillars stood offset from the outer walls, marking the corners of a featureless central square. Each pillar held up an L-shaped mezzanine, under which timber frames created the L-shaped ghosts of unfinished walls. Long curtains of plastic sheets covered the holes wherever drywall hadn't yet been hung.

The half-made corridors were lit from within by hundreds of candles and filled with pallets of construction materials and tools. Tall stacks of cement mix and planks of two-by-fours made from engineered biomass. Stronger and cheaper than pine. The refracting candlelight flushed those translucent shrines with the same inner glow as a flashlight with a hand held over it. The uncanny veil of burnt orange that blood and fat make. The rest of the penthouse was empty.

With a shattering clap, the wall of glass behind her exploded. A moaning vortex sucked air through a jagged mouth where the windowpane used to be. With an angry roar, Oda rose to his feet from within the mess of shrapnel, wearing a suit of insect-like armour.

He was a small man, five-foot-five, but he looked so much smaller in the tactical bodysuit, his compact gymnast's frame made all the more inhumanly thin by the lines of blades that shuddered hungrily out of his forearms. The oversized helmet, a slick, aerodynamic egg, only exaggerated the heinous caricature.

Since their first meeting, V could sense the theatrical anger which Oda craved to loose. It came for her in a furious growl. "So, Takemura sacrificed his _kakitare_ to save himself?" He sneered, showing teeth. "A useless old coward hiding behind his lackeys. Fucking trash rescued from the city dump. Or have you repaid that favour by killing him already, and set your murderous ambition on Hanako next?"

"Where'd you learn to talk like that? Did Goro teach you those swear words?" She hummed in mild surprise. "Huh. Didn't know he knew any."

"Takemura Goro taught me nothing. I'll happily abandon him to this labyrinth of filth after dealing with you." Oda took a step forward, his Mantis Blades unfolding and reaching toward her. Dull candlelight shimmered across the steel. "You have already kept me from Hanako-sama too long. Offer your neck honourably, and you won't suffer. I give you my word."

He jumped toward V, his twin weapons whistling between them. She leapt back, clutching at her handgun, then threw herself to the ground as another flurry of blows fell inches from her shoulder. While Oda reared over her, preparing a third strike, she rolled out of his reach and scrambled to her feet, searching for places of concealment. She wouldn't win a duel. But he was easily pushed to frustrated outbursts, like Takemura. She might survive by pressing him until he made a mistake then catching him off-guard.

She slipped softly from one refuge to the next then scrambled up to a mezzanine which, she guessed, he wouldn't immediately mark as a hiding place. When she heard him approach, V leaned out from her trap, aimed the gun at his helmet, and was already retreating when she heard the bullet make contact. The HUD of his dented mask flickered and died. He tore it away.

Moving silently across the room, V pressed her back to a far pillar, listening for her opponent's stomping footfalls. Then he stopped, and there was silence. V inched ahead for another look.

But Oda spotted her, and launched himself forward, bridging the gap and bringing all his weight down upon the tip of one blade. V was too slow. The tip of his weapon punctured her forearm, killing the circuitry of her implanted projectile launcher. It absorbed some of Oda's furious momentum, but not enough to stop the blade from penetrating through to the other side. With a wail of agony, V blindly shoved the suppressor of her gun into Oda's shoulder, sending a bullet through the rotator cuff before he could withdraw. Still, Oda swept the gun aside with his crippled arm, freeing it from V's grip and sending it spinning across the floor.

He made a grab for her hair. She opened his face with a head-butt, disappearing again while he angrily tore at the air around him, stunned by the surprise impact and blinded by the blood in his eyes. When he rushed toward the sound of her heaving breaths, V crawled behind a fallen tower of cement bags, grabbing candles and two-by-fours and lengths of rebar and hand-tools and hurling them all at the snarling bodyguard. His blades slapped away every attempt. Then one of the planks found Oda's mouth with the muffled sound of uprooted teeth. He heaved out an animal scream, clutching his face.

Takemura waited as long as he could, listening for signs of life from V through the sound of clashing metal. But Hanako's float had begun its transit under his walkway and it was time to move. Every curve of his thoughts revealed a new nightmare, and every sob and scream and pained moan over the open phone-line unnerved him anew. Above all, he had to stay cold and indifferent until the very end. For V's death to mean anything, should it come to that, he must finish his mission.

He examined the roof-tiles on the giant pagoda floating beneath the foot-bridge, awaiting it with the singular focus of a predator. He decided the tiles would provide enough purchase for his hands and feet, and found a large and flat enough surface to aim for. When he could not wait any longer, Takemura pulled the black cowl over his head, and jumped.

"A stupid, desperate animal," Oda complained, through hot pain and a mouthful of blood. V kept silent while he continued yelling in all directions. Instead of finding a way to recover her firearm, she crept from cover to cover, cradling her impaled arm. While he tore through plastic sheets to find her, she got behind his line of sight and prepared herself to jump.

When he turned around and saw her, she was already on his neck. She wrapped her hands around it, gushing blood from her pierced flexor, and squeezed with all the power she had left. Her legs wrapped around the backs of his knees and brought them both down to the floor. He struggled, ripping gashes in V's sides. But soon, his shoulders drooped, and his arm-blades clattered against the floor. " _Shimatta_ ," Oda whimpered, the whites of his eyes turning dull and red. Their two bloodsmeared faces were almost against each other until Oda's body fell slack. She left him there. Unconscious, but alive.

 _Shimatta_. V knew what it meant. _I have made a mistake_. A word Goro could not have taught him.

Takemura lay flat against the top of the floating pagoda, panting quietly. He waited for his breath to steady, then pulled back his cowl and listened for sounds of alarm. When he was satisfied his landing had gone unnoticed, he slithered across the surface of the float and cautiously peeked beyond the edge of the roof. As he expected, the float was nearly empty. Without Oda, he could get to Hanako in one last concerted push. He crept down into the float, and stood up cautiously inside the dark shadows.

Johnny's voice was sharper than before, a whine of helpless panic. "We gotta delta, V, this isn't good. You've gotta tie off that arm fucking _now_!"

V ignored him, crawling toward the limp Netrunner instead, leaving behind long smudge of red. She jacked into the parade security feed just in time to see Takemura approaching Hanako. "It fucking worked," she cried, tying off a tourniquet just below her elbow and wrapping bandages around her wounds. It was all she could do for now.

Johnny urged her again. "Fine, now let's fucking buzz before the juvie wakes up!" He whispered. "Please, V."

She nodded but couldn't move her rapt attention away from the feed. Just a few seconds more. The smartly-dressed woman first took a few careful steps toward Takemura, but predictably dashed leftward to raise the alarm. Takemura thrusted forward to intercept and caught her with his stun-gun. She collapsed into his waiting arms. V spat an angry sigh, slamming the security laptop closed.

" _Motherfucker_."

"I fucking _told you so_! Happy? Now move!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • changed the rating to E, just in case
> 
> • if the occasional flashbacks make this too confusing to follow give me a heads-up and i shall massage it some more. 5,000+ words is a lot of information to wrangle for a weakling such as myself.
> 
> • porn-seekers: they will fuck eventually, but everyone must suffer first

**Author's Note:**

> In times of doubt, I turn to my faithful LIST OF REFERENCES AND SOURCES  
> [Cyberpunk Glossary](https://orrange.tripod.com/glossary.html)  
> [Japanese dictionary](https://www.japandict.com/)  
> [The Trove](https://thetrove.is/Books/Cyberpunk/) (Cyberpunk 2013/2020 Sourcebook PDFs for lore, esp. Wildside & Night City Sourcebook)  
> The works of Hakuin Ekaku, Slavoj Žižek, Haruki Murakami, Cormac McCarthy and Michel Foucault  
> And special big ups to Jimmy Wales' Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, for helping me to write the kind of flagrantly implausible fake science hereto only seen in Christopher Nolan films.


End file.
